


Tit for Tat

by ETNRL4L



Category: Dragon Ball
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Arranged Marriage, F/M, Romance, Slow Burn, Vegebul
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-13
Updated: 2018-10-21
Packaged: 2019-03-04 03:22:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 60,020
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13355451
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ETNRL4L/pseuds/ETNRL4L
Summary: Unwittingly, Vegeta and Bulma come together to seal a fragile treaty between unlikely allies. Both have much to gain and much to compromise.It is an arrangement of convenience. They collaborate, and each gets what they need. Attachment is not part of the agreement. They certainly don't have to like each other. They barely need to interact to reach their intertwined goal. They just need to stay focused.But, focus can become... elusive, when your enforced not-really-your-spouse is so damned——distracting!COMPLETE.☆The Prince and the Heiress Writing & Art Community 2018 Annual Awards Proud Nominee☆





	1. Prologue: Arrangements

**Author's Note:**

> This is a plot bunny that's been festering in my head for a hot minute. I know the trope has been done before. But, which trope hasn't been done in a fandom that's been around for two decades? Hopefully, the narration will make up for the redundancy of the trope.  
> In this alternate universe, the Saiyans did not destroy planet Sadala and instead formed a symbiotic relationship with the Tuffles. They conquered other planets, but annexed them into an empire, instead of selling them. They still send their weakest infants into space to scout new territories, but as spies—not purgers.  
> The saiyans never partnered with Frieza and, instead, have been at war with the Icejin for generations. 
> 
> I am new to this fandom and have yet to find a beta, so all mistakes are mine. Please feel free to point them out. I will correct. Also, I have been told I tend to ramble in my writing. Please feel free to point out anything that reads too rambling.
> 
> Disclaimer: I do not own Dragon Ball or any of its titles. They are the intellectual property of Akira Toriyama and he fully deserves any royalties he earns for his wonderful creation. This is a work of fancy and I make no money off of writing or posting it.
> 
> Fan art for this fan fiction by the amazing Rutbisbe:  
> 
> 
>   
>    
> 

* * *

A clench of his fist and, with the sound of kindling splitting in a bonfire, the eyes of the thing in his grasp went vacant. His digits relaxed, and the lifeless being slumped to the soil to join the pile of its kin.

He took a deep lungful of the blood-smoke-and-death reeking air, eyes closed, indulging a few moments for his pulse to level out.

Breathe.

Breathe.

Calm…

His eyes opened, calculating.

The outpost was in ruins, the regiment of soldiers tasked with garrisoning it— all dead.

Shit.

A few hours. He’d missed the bastards by _hours_.

Calm. Breathe. Assess. Salvage.

Nothing could be done about the dead. He’d have the bodies collected, made presentable, and shipped to the families; make sure they had a State service whatever planet they’d be returned to. He’d ensure the plea was made of the eldest child to avenge the loss and safeguard the rest of the family’s safety by enlisting.

Soldiers were always in high demand.

The enemy dead…

He circled a look about him. He’d task someone with scavenging for weapons, armor—anything of use in the future.

Their pods had made some reasonably sized craters. They’d serve well enough as sheol. No need to bury them. They would burn. More respect than they deserved. Certainly, more than they’d afford him and his, were the circumstances reversed. And, leaving them out for the elements to claim was impractical. They’d foment disease.

His eyes settled on the base. The bulk of the compound was subterranean, making the demolished above-ground structure superficial damage. At worse.

A month (maybe two?) to reconstruct. The mines and refinery—all subterranean— remained thankfully unscathed and fully functioning. The well-drilled miners and workers had taken refuge in their barracks the moment the attack sirens went off, and all fifteen thousand or so were accounted for.

His regiment would have to serve as guard until the garrison could be replaced. Operations had to resume immediately. The ore mined here was too indispensable.

He thought a moment.

Two hundred men, trained specifically for prolonged deployment. The nearest base was a quarter AU off. Average base held a thousand or so reserve, maybe a third of those trenchers. If he put the call in immediately, they could be here in two of this planetoid’s lunar cycles.

Longer than he’d planned to stay (hadn’t planned on staying at all, until they’d intercepted the distress beacon), but he’d make due. The frontlines were months away. He could afford a couple days’ detour.

He surveyed the damage again, scowling. It had been an opportunistic strike. They never would have made it past Bardock’s blockade, had it not been thinned in this sector by the General’s impromptu departure on special orders from the king.

Better damned be worth it.

“Sire!”

He turned to watch Raditz land a few yards from where he stood, crushing some departed bastard’s scull with his armored boot. The titan didn’t notice, eyes narrowed questioningly, head tipped in a fashion far too infantile for the genetic monster.

“Why aren’t you wearing your scouter?”

Reflexively, his hand reached into his tasset’s inner lining, pulling the device out and placing it over his ear, not flipping the screen down to activate it. He loathed digging little bits of dried gore, bone, exoskeleton, viscera—and whatever else— from the joints and seams. These operations tended to get so… sloppy.

Not of a mood to humor inquiries, he directed a sneer at the subordinate.

“And you believe yourself entitled to question me—why?”

Instantly cowed, the large man hunched in some bizarre and utterly futile attempt at making himself smaller. He rubbed the back of his neck like a toddler scolded for pissing the bed. “Ah…” the brute mumbled. “Sorry, Vegeta. No disrespect. I mean, you can do whatever you want... Sire… uh, Highness. It’s just… we can’t reach you when you’re not wearin’ it, is all…”

Reining his already strained temper with some effort, he took a deep breath and released it through flared nostrils. “And, still, by some miracle of Providence, here you stand, somehow managing to find me, sans the scouter, at the exact coordinates I reported I’d be at when we last communicated." 

Raditz’s face contorted in confusion. “But I had to _fly_ here to reach you…”

A hand came up to squeeze the bridge of his nose. Absently, he registered disgust at the bodily fluid transfer from glove to face, but his rational mind quickly dismissed it. He was covered in the filth.

Occupational hazard.

“Why are you here, Lieutenant?” he managed to growl out.

Perking up at finally getting to do whatever he’d been commissioned to, Raditz straightened, removing his activated scouter. He shortened the few steps that separated them to stretch it out towards the prince. “We got a communique from General Bardock on Earth. Sounds important. Direct orders from His Majesty—”

He batted Raditz’s hand away with unwarranted violence. “I’m wearing one, moron. Why would I want your disgusting ear sweat on me?” he groused, nose crinkling.

“This better _be_ important. We’ve already been sidetracked enough, cleaning this mess your idiot father made by gallivanting off to the middle-of-now—” his arraignment choked off. He squinted, rereading the script streaming across his eyepiece, as if the second or third perusal could change the order or substance of the words.

“Yeah, you see?” Raditz said hesitantly… anxiously. “You’re being ordered to stand down, and report immediately to Earth—

“—to attend your own wedding.”

 

~~O~~

 

**_~A Few Hours Earlier…~_ **

 

“Your Majesty, I’m certain, can appreciate our… reservations… on this matter,” said Professor Briefs with a pointed look toward the tall, muscle-bound General, standing with arms crossed beside the monarch. The king missed neither the unspoken accusation, nor the scientist’s thick swallow.

“Your initial purpose in scouting Earth was… not so innocent, after all—”

“And yet,” King Vegeta parried, voice edged with so much haughtiness, it was nearly a purr. “Here your boondocks planet still orbits its insignificant star in its obscure solar system. It’s people still free and blissfully unaware of the true nature of the universe. Thanks, in no small part, to the military protection the Saiyan Empire has magnanimously provided.”

A gloved index finger traced the rim of the wine glass languidly, punctuating its owner’s almost bored countenance. The same disinterest marked his tenor. “I do hope you remember that, were it not for our initial scouting of your inconsequential little mudball —motives aside— the Icejin would have already annihilated all intelligent life on this speck and sold the globe to the highest bidder.”

Sparing an appraising glance at his General, he added, “One might presume you were… _ungrateful_ …of how impossibly serendipitous our discovering you first turned out to be.”

Bardock stood at attention at his master’s acknowledgment, and the king’s scowl gained a hint of pride. He was glad the Elite was here.

They’d been assigned the same billet throughout Trials, and, after Commencement, had risen through the rank and file together. Throughout those decades, Bardock always managed to have a civilizing effect on him. And, Providence knew just how much he needed it now.

The gall of this pathetic _academic_ , whining and haggling over trivialities when he should beg to grovel at the king’s feet in gratitude for the offer granted.

Earth was gaining every bit as much from the bargain as the Empire was. More, even.

They were gaining perpetuated existence! This alone was a far cry from what most peoples who garnered the Icejin’s notice received.

Still, this man believed he deserved _assurances_?

Aware the Professor still waited to have his misgivings assuaged, and feeling rather disinclined to oblige, King Vegeta allowed his gaze to roam idly over the massive, lavishly decorated reception hall.

By the buffet tables piled high with all means of exotic delicacies, stood his General’s youngest son, Kakarot, his human mate by his side, their infant son snoozing in her arms.

By how much he crammed in it, the king presumed Kakarot intent on testing how far his mouth could stretch without the need to chew— or engaging his gag reflex. Disgusting.

How had Bardock sired… _that_?

Kararot’s female —actively ignoring her mate’s grotesquery— was trying to engage Dr. Briefs’s daughter in conversation. However…

One brow hitched high on his formidable forehead, interest piqued.

The blue-haired young woman stood relaxed, clad in an obscenely immodest amethyst gown that left her shoulders, her cleavage down to her navel, and a stretch of right leg up to her hip, bared for all to see. And, she was staring at him, near oblivious to her comrade’s ramblings.

No. Not staring. Scrutinizing. Fierce intelligence churned like magma in those unsettlingly blue eyes.

Unbidden, the corner of the king’s mouth hitched with what felt dangerously close to esteem, would ever he capitulate to holding her in such regard—even within the intimacy of his own thoughts.

The professor’s daughter had achieved a feat very few others had managed in his long years: she’d impressed him.

She’d sat in at her company’s negotiations with his people. Though their few interactions had been brief, as he’d only attended a few moments before leaving the minutia to his coterie, he’d gleaned from the minutes of those sessions that she possessed a vicious creature of a mind. Combined with a ruthless sword of a tongue and a near suicidal lack of self-preservation, the girl exuded warrior essence.

The king’s envoy was comprised of his Tuffle minister of science, an Arcosian astral physicist, and a smattering of intellectually gifted vestiges from the territories the Empire had annexed over the centuries. They were the very best his Empire had to offer.

Through sheer intellect and gumption, the Briefs girl had humbled the assembly of twenty-odd of the brightest minds in as many star systems (all decades her seniors) into not simply condescending to, but eagerly embracing her innovations and designs.  

Which had brought to light the fact that it was _her_ genius, not her father’s, behind every high-yield energy weapon, forcefield, space-faring vessel, and lightspeed breeching engine design, to come out of Capsule Corp. the last decade. The merit of which first captured the King’s interest, leading to his decision to have Bardock spare the planet’s inhabitants until he could better assess the possibility of keeping them as technological assets.

Hmm…

 _Allies_.

The professor’s child was as wary of the treatise as her father, branding it (loudly) the extortion and exploitation of a weaker people by a stronger one.

However, after days of belaboring the grievance, even she’d been forced to concede Earth had little recourse but to accept the bargain. The fact that his people could just as easily enslave the populace and force her and her father to do their bidding, had come to prove incontrovertible. And, the puzzle of _why_ he had chosen diplomacy over conquest was driving her to distraction, the king was certain. Likely, that more than anything motivated her support of the accord.

From what he’d learned of the young woman, her pride was inexorably tethered to her intellect, and would not abide the challenge of puzzling out his motives to go unanswered.

Looking at her, the king could imagine what she’d be like if her physicality matched her spirit, what that would translate to on a battlefield. The Icejin would be hard-pressed to find her match.

It would take one sanguine, obstinate, masochistic asshole indeed to even—

“The most perfect solution for assuaging your worries just came to me, Professor,” he blurted, eyes large as moons snapping back to Dr. Briefs. An arm swept abruptly in the direction of the young people by the buffet.

“In the… intimate… spirit of our compact, and to assure you of the sincerity of my promise—our pact shall be sealed by a marriage between our houses.”

“A-a m-marriage b-between—w-wha—?” sputtered the aged scientist, caught utterly disarmed. A mouthful of wine came shooting through his teeth.

The couple dozen attendees at the diplomatic function where apparently likewise befuddled, as all conversations ceased. The king breathed a snort into the pregnant silence. “Oh, come now, Dr. Briefs! Surely a man of your genius can appreciate the value in such a unity?”

“Wait! Time out. Hold up. Run that by us again—” The professor’s daughter rushed the few meters to where her father stood shocked, trying to blot the wine stain from his tie with a napkin. Her, ridiculously impractical high heeled shoes clacked thunderously in the suddenly quiet room.

The King ignored her and continued.

“Your daughter. My heir. A husband with physical prowess to match that of her mind. And all the assurance you need of our military’s continued support, until the Icejin no longer pose a threat. My son has earned the unquestionable respect of our forces."

Voice booming with the cocksureness of his own brilliance, the king boasted, "Any soldier hesitant to give his life in the service of a foreign people would nary bat an eye doing it in the quest to protect their Prince’s family.”

“No. Seriously. Time out!” the blue-haired girl spoke up again, louder, punctuating the statement with a grab at the king’s bicep. He was too stunned she’d dared touch him to register the appropriate offense.

Taking a deep breath, the girl blurted, “Are you out of your mind? Why would you presume I’d agree to this? Why would you presume I’d _want_ to marry as some interspecies experiment in diplomacy? And why is this being proposed to _my father_? I’m _right here_. I’m a grown damned woman. Ask me!”

The pressure on his arm increased, and he presumed it meant she wanted him to focus on her. Seeing as she’d never get him to budge with her feeble strength, he condescended to shift, fully locking eyes with her. For a fraction of a second, the girl looked taken aback at his compliance, obviously expecting some other reaction and, likely, churning up a reasoning for his easy acquiescence.

Then a blink, a swallow, and she trundled on. “Look. I’m flattered. Really. But, this is not necessary.” She spared an exasperated glance at her father. “It _isn’t_ necessary, Dad.”

Her eyes traced back to lock with the king’s. “Our company is ready and willing to aide the effort in your war with these overlords. We don’t need guarantees. The schematics are already drawn up. We can start manufacturing within the mon—”

“My men have free will, Miss Briefs—” the king cut off, with an admirable amount of benevolence, considering her piss-poor observance of Royal protocol.

“—coupled, notoriously, with a deep-seeded stubbornness and near-manic voracity for conflict. I am not so naïve of my own people’s nature as to dismiss your father’s concerns. I can decree this planet under the Empire’s protectorate, make it treason to harm its people. However, until you proof your value, I can’t guarantee one or more of my soldiers will not risk punishment and try to abolish your people so that their comrades can go back to the front and face the larger threat to their home and families. What is Earth to these men but a distraction from their true objective? The greater battle?”

He saw when the understanding sparked in her large eyes, brightening them for an nth of a second before they darkened again, desperation taking hold.

“B-but,” she stuttered, mind visibly raging for a counterargument, anything to dissuade this course of events, but, ultimately coming up with nothing. Still, she frowned, refusing to concede. “What if your son doesn’t want _me_? Doesn’t want… _this_? He’s a soldier, right? A soldier wouldn’t want to be married to some woman he’s never met, from a species even weaker than Sadala’s –what did one of your men call them?—Tuffle cast? Yes, the Tuffles! A soldier wouldn’t want that, nor would he want to owe allegiance to some strange planet. You said he has free will. He can refuse—”

The king grinned, almost sympathetic, almost roused. He’d expect no less a fight from her.

“My son, Miss Briefs, is an exceedingly driven arrow, with a very morbid shadow,” he said cryptically. His smile grew solemn. “However, his will ends where mine begins. I have made a Royal decree. Defiance is treason. Treason, in his case, means the abdication of his military rank, his Royal title and his birthright. He has worked all his life toward some exceeding lofty goals, not the least of which is to claim the crown and lead his people. He will not disparage a lifetime of strife over _this_. My son _will_ marry you and seal this alliance.”

Her small hand dropped away from his arm, shoulders slumping, eyes casting down and away.

That was unacceptable.

“Come now, Miss Briefs,” he said in a mocking lilt, making her eyes snap back to him, a little angry now, a little… intrigued.

The king swallowed a scoff.

“You, who have already bargained and haggled your way through weeks of negotiations…” He allowed a wicked grin. “Are unwilling to go the distance _now_ to assure your world and species survive?”

Flame sparked those large blue eyes, and they narrowed. Once again calculating. Determined.

He had her.

* * *

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What do you think? Does the plot intrigue you? Hit that little comment button and spill.
> 
> Comments and kudos tend to make us fic writers write more.
> 
> :O)
> 
> If you are the strong, silent type, hit me up anonymously on Tumblr: the-tesseract-wrinkling-time.tumblr.com


	2. Recriminations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Vegeta arrives and confronts the king.

* * *

It was unexpected, upon reporting breach of atmosphere, to have a mechanical voice supply coordinates to a landing pad.

Pods were built to withstand hard impact landing by necessity, but the experience was hardly pleasant. Alighting on a specifically designed cushioned platform was a luxury rarely afforded outside Sadala, and a score of the Empire’s higher echelon worlds. Never would Vegeta expect the extravagant accommodation on a planet that’d been under Saiyan purview less than six months.

The moment the vessel settled into its cradle, he vaulted, barely waiting for the hatch to open fully. The abrupt exodus startled the technician who’d approached, presumably to offer service.

Another surprise.

A landing pad _and_ personnel, already trained in the maintenance of Empire spacecraft.

Had the previous three months not consisted of semi-conscious intergalactic travel hibernation, enforced rumination of the dossier streaming to his limbic system via the pod’s neural interface, and stewing in rage… he’d be impressed.

As it was, the unfortunate technician found himself dangling by the collar, terrified and gasping as the prince snarled a command for the location of the Saiyan King.

Upon the man sputtering and pointing shakily, Vegeta dropped him unceremoniously, and stomped off down one of a dozen stone-paved walkways splintering from the port.  

As the tech had indicated, after several dozen meters, the manicured lawn flanking the path abruptly transitioned to subtropical foliage, and he found himself surrounded by more species of colorful flora and feathered, flying fauna than he’d ever encountered in one environ.

A few minutes’ walk through the bizarre _garden_ , the path widened into a grand portico leading–amazingly—to a much smaller scale replica of Sadala’s Royal Palace.

While the stroll through the artificial jungle had been oddly cathartic (likely its intended purpose), now the blood in his veins began to stir anew. That omnipresent well of rage—at times subdued, but never fully dormant—steadily heated.

When he’d received the comm advising the king had discovered something of use in a primitive planet in the ass-backwards corner of a distant galaxy, he’d expected the man to be roughing it in some wilderness. Witnessing the opulence the monarch had been afforded while negotiating this ridiculous treatise, that had ultimately lead to the barter of _his life_ …

…Well…

The armored boot impacted the massive exotic wood doors with all the vehemence of his emotion, splintering the intricate carving of his family’s crest beyond recognition.

A couple of steps in, he found Shugesh and Borgos—apparently assigned sentinel duty—sprawled and stunned on the vestibule’s debris-covered floor. Pitifully slowly, the men scrambled back to their feet, assuming defensive stances in preparation for imminent attack.

His eyes rolled so severely, a muscle in the sockets protested.

In the time it’d taken them to regroup, he could’ve eviscerated the shitheads and been well on his way to committing patricide. The king needed to reassess his choice of guard.

“P-Prince V-Vegeta! It’s you!” Shugesh sputtered with a hissed breath, relaxing his stance. The rotund soldier let out a cackle.

“Shit, Highness, we almost killed you!”

So ludicrous a claim was undeserving of acknowledgment. Without a glance at the halfwits, Vegeta shouldered forth, heading for the equally intricate entryway to the Great Hall.

Four strides in, Shugesh sidestepped, his massive bulk blocking the prince access. “Apologies, Sire. His Majesty left explicit orders that no one is to disturb him without first being announ—”

In a half blink, Vegeta’s open palm collided with the minion’s sternum, propelling him clean across the foyer, through the thick doors, and several yards into the adjoining room.

“There, you fat fuck,” he spat, casually striding into the room. “You’ve announced me.”

He paused to lean over the prone soldier, and clamped a hand around the big man’s throat. Trachea in a vice grip, he lifted the warrior until he was at eye level. “Now, get back out there and _do not_ let me catch you slacking off at your post again, or you _might_ anger me. Understood, Lieutenant?”

Not bothering to decipher whatever it was the purple faced man gurgled in ascent, the prince flipped his arm back, tossing the warrior over his shoulder and through the ruined threshold.

He spared a glance to watch Borgos run to his comrade’s aide, before turning back, resuming his course toward the raised dais where the king and First General Bardock stood, their eyes dancing with mirth.

It incensed him, their amusement, and his vitriol-roughened voice thundered across the high ceiling. “What the hell is going on he—”

“You _will_ show proper respect to your King, _Child_!”

**Shit, shit, _shit_! **

Vegeta _loathed_ the king using that goddamned epithet!

By Sadala’s reckoning of time, he was twenty-fucking-four, and reasonably certain he’d forfeited claim to the marque of ‘child’ at five.

Still, he found his blistering fury only just subverted by an eternity of dogmatically imbedded discipline.

With agility a lifetime of muscle memory bred, he dropped to a knee, one fist coming to rest over his heart, the other slamming into the foreign stone below with such force, cracks spiderwebbed from the impact.

His eyes lowered to trace those cracks, working to cage his temper. His imagination unhelpfully inundated him with graphic imagery of murder. His voice remained steel grinding on rock, as it hissed through clenched teeth. “You summoned me, my Liege?”

“Told you he’d be pissed,” Bardock quipped in a bastardization of a whisper.

“And such a _feat_ of clairvoyance _that_ was?” the king parried. “The asshole baselines pissed.”

**_And how the asshole adores being spoken of as if he weren’t standing within fucking earshot._ **

“I plead permission to speak freely, Your Majesty,” Vegeta ground out through a jaw clenched to near pain.

“Denied,” the king replied, which forced the prince’s eyes to snap to the monarch, wide with outrage.

Unfazed by the glare, the king raised a stiff index finger, and calmly added the qualification, “Denied until you take whatever time required to marshal that ridiculous ire of yours, and are once more capable of rational reasoning. You believe yourself deserving of being addressed as an adult—?

“—Stop blustering like a goddamned petulant _toddler_! Your breeding _demands_ better.”

Fuuuuck.

He _despised_ when the king was right.

Choking down the resentment, Vegeta forced his eyes closed. Forced his mind to clear. Forced a long pull of air, released it slowly. Then, again. And again.

Again. Again.

Breathe.

Calm.

Slow the damned pulse.

After a few moments, he let out a last long exhale, allowing his shoulders to slump.

“Excellent,” the king exclaimed, and the prince didn’t miss the hint of pride in the monarch’s baritone.

Against his will, his chest clenched at the unexpected praise, and he instantly berated his traitorous heart. He was decades past the sophomoric need of this man’s approval.

“At ease, First Commander.”

Opening his eyes, Vegeta straightened, legs shoulder-width apart, wrists coming to cross over his lower back, just below the base of his tail.

The king smiled—a real smile, not a patronizing smirk—before turning his attention to the General at his side. “Activate it.”

Tracking the motion, the prince noted Bardock depressing a button on a small remote pad. With a pop, ambient sound in the large room –echoes, the hum of the temperature control system, the bustle of workers assessing repairs to the building’s doors— all stopped, abruptly. His eyes widened.

Obviously aware of his awe, the king offered, “Data jammer. An ingenious little device your betrothed developed to counter what she refers to as ‘corporate espionage’. It forms an electromagnetic resonance bubble that disrupts the frequency of monitoring devices. She has already supplied us with thousands. They will revolutionize our cold war with the Icejin.”

Impressive.

“What function has such a device _here_?”

The monarch’s smile broadened, a mischievous glint sparking his eyes. “Your bride is spying on me.”

Vegeta’s brow quirked, prompting the king to chuckle, and explain, “She is… inquisitive. Militantly so. It has become an obsession of hers, learning my reasons for striking this bargain with her company and planet, as opposed to enslaving them. From what Professor Morell has gleaned, the clever minx has mined the entirety of her immense property with monitoring devices. And, as she knows we have a jammer, a computer hidden somewhere randomly scrambles the frequencies every four hours. It takes Morell’s team about two and a half to find the new frequency, so we can speak freely for about twenty minutes—likely less—before it changes, rendering our jammer useless. I suggest we make this brief.”

At the king’s side, Bardock scoffed. “Have fun with all _that_ —”

Suppressing annoyance at having a subordinate address him so familiarly, the prince directed a sneer at the king. “Yes. About that—"

Again, the monarch raised a finger, stifling the diatribe. “Before unwarranted recriminations find their way to your tongue, Commander, I have a demand.”

The imperious note to the man’s voice strummed up Vegeta’s spine and, instinctively, he stood straighter. Every impulse instilled in him as a soldier—and, if he dug very, very deep and was honest with himself: as a son—demanded he comply with this man’s requests.

“I want you, Vegeta, who I have known since infancy to posses a preternatural gift for strategy, to tell me why you are here. Why have I taken this course of action with Earth?” The king’s stare locked with his, challenging.

The inducement surfaced a memory from the deeper recesses of the prince’s mind.

_“Let’s play a game, my son.”_

_He was two— maybe three? A couple of years before, against the king’s admonishment, he’d cajoled his way into Trials, a full two years before the established age._

_He’d been sat on his father’s lap after the king had dismissed his Tuffle tutor, as had become a monthly routine. His father had smiled warmly down at him, an emotion it would still take years for his toddler intellect to decipher, flashing in the man’s eyes._

_It always went the same._

_“Let’s play a game, shall we?”_

_Then, his father would ask a queer question. Every month the question changed._

_“You’re trapped in a room with no doors or windows: how do you get out?”_

_“You are stranded on a raft in the middle of a vast ocean with no food, water or transportation: how do you survive?”_

_“A house has four trees on the south side, four trees on the north side, four trees on the east side and four trees on the west side. Where does the house have the most trees?”_

_And, so on…_

_Sometimes, his father brought a puzzle. “Find the way to the center of the maze.”_

_Or, he would bring an intricately shaped object. “Sketch for me what it would look like inside out.”_

For what felt a long time to such a young boy, he’d failed to understand the purpose of his father’s games. Now that he was a grown man and an officer, the king’s ‘games’ had served to save his ass more times than he cared to admit.

Allowing the musing to recede, Vegeta focused on the task at hand. Refusing to tear his own glare from the monarch’s, he took a few steadying breaths, and thought.

After a handful of moments immersed in the oddly vacuous silence of the jammer field, he spoke.

“The war between our Empire and the Icejin has been waged for three generations. And, even from the beginning, it’s been defensive on our end,” he began, introspectively.

“After learning through allies to the crown of the Icejin’s intentions against Sadala, your predecessor employed a tactic of evasion. The then monarch realized no Saiyan alive could stand up to Chilled, and, judging from the growing strength of the Emperor’s progeny, it was obvious every succeeding generation of that cursed family was more formidable than the previous. So, he called upon the technologies of all Imperial worlds to build a fleet without match, and deployed it throughout the territories. He reasoned our best odds of surviving the Icejin lay in ensuring no vessels carrying blood members of the family ever got within an astronomical unit of an Empire planet, because, though the freaks can survive in a vacuum and destroy a planet from orbit, they require spacecraft to propel them through the cosmos.

“The flaw in that strategy has surfaced over time.”

Vegeta paused, frowned, and continued in a more solemn than clinical tone.  “The blockade that keeps the Icejin out, hems us in. The Empire cannot expand. The war has been costly: culturally, economically and technologically. We lose track of infant scouts sent to far off galaxies because we simply do not have the resources to track them all. We are losing opportunities. The Empire is stretched too thin.

“Your Majesty had two choices once Bardock found his son on this world, and neither was enslavement. We could destroy it, preventing its resources from being exploited by the Icejin, or we could ally with its ruler and exploit said resources ourselves. Enslavement was impossible. The Empire’s dominion could not be enforced efficiently on a planet a year’s travel from the Core. The populace would revolt. With Kakarot retarding efforts to quell said rebellion, keeping the planet would prove…impractical.”

“ _I’m_ here,” Vegeta exhaled a long, resigned breath.  “Because most of our people’s prospective is too obtuse for these considerations. Someone with intellect and unquestionable authority was necessary to ensure our interests on this world were not undermined by some trigger-happy homesick idiot.”

The King was beaming now, and again there was that lurch in his chest. He fought to keep the corner of his own mouth from hitching, even smugly. The man would get nothing from him.

“And, you need to perpetuate the Royal bloodline.”

Feeling heat rush his neck, he clicked his tongue and averted his eyes. “Tarble has already—”

“Tarble is an idealistic romantic, who barely survived Trials. Before his balls had dropped, he’d impregnated a third-class who could barely read, much less contribute valuable genes to the worthless brat she spawned. And, he has already proven himself useless as a soldier. It is unacceptable that the bloodline be perpetuated through Tarble.”

This was turning out to rate exceptionally high on the prince’s list of uncomfortable conversations.

The king, better than anyone, knew his goal to reach the level of the Legendary outstripped every other constituent of his existence—sexual proclivities included.

Upon reaching sexual maturity in his pre-teens, to repress the fledgling baser biological urges, his already taxing training regimen had redoubled to the point of self-flagellation.

It had been simple in Trials. In that hellhole, keeping oneself breathing took preeminence over all other concerns and distractions. And, billets were gender segregated. After Commencement, he’d immersed himself in battle after battle at the frontlines, purging through violence the otherwise pent-up sexual energy. Every day not spent fighting was spent in an isolation chamber, ensuring every injury incurred served to add another bulwark to his exponentially increasing strength.

The indoctrination had proven implacable.

Until… _this_.

“What worth would an heir have if its mother has the power level of an insect?” he snarled, nose crinkling, more out of angry frustration than true disgust.  For months his betrothed’s image had been fed to his mind, along with her biography.

Not even he could disparage her aesthetic appeal.

However, that was the root of his conundrum, wasn’t it?

“Humans have proven exceptional breeding stock,” the king rebuked with a glance at his General.  “Kakarot’s son was born with the highest power level of any infant since you, Vegeta. I’m confident a Saiyan-Human heir will be quite satisfactory.”

“I have no—” he faltered, fighting the urge to run a hand through his hair. He fixed a pointed glare on the king. Why was the asshole pretending to be so fucking difficult?

“—I’ve far more _pressing_ priorities than siring an heir, at this time—” he swallowed hard, reining his pride with effort. His last word was barely a whisper. “—Father.”

The king, likely noting his discomfort, snorted. “If anyone in the universe can force you to reassess your _priorities_ , the Briefs woman will.”

His scowl twisted into a sneer, and the monarch laughed outright.

“You have got to be the least carnal person I’ve ever encountered, Vegeta,” he trilled, mockingly. “You don’t get that from me. And, your mother was a—"

“Pardon, My Liege, if I insist my mother have no mention in this conversation,” Vegeta interjected, heatedly. He’d be damned if he was going to stand there and listen to the king wax grandiloquent about the sexual exploits shared between he and the woman who’d begotten him.

The prince held still-beating hearts in his hand without flinching on what most would consider a disturbingly regular basis. Disemboweling beings was rote. But, even _his_ constitution had its limits.

The king grinned condescendingly, and descended the few steps of the dais to stand before him.

“As you wish, Vegeta,” the monarch sighed with false sympathy. “But, you have yet to learn the strongest argument for marrying _this_ woman—my decree aside.”

Vegeta’s scowl softened somewhat, the king’s tone whetting his curiosity.

“I have made the Briefs woman aware of the Legend of the Super Saiyan,” the monarch explained. “As part of the pact, she has agreed to furnish you with a training facility, one without match in the universe, so that you may attain the power to destroy the Icejin threat. Seeing as your destroying our mutual enemy ensures the survival of her race, she is exceedingly invested in doing anything necessary to that end.”

The prince scrutinized the king, searching for any sign of hyperbole. After a few seconds, he concluded the monarch was being earnest, and his jaw clenched, causing a muscle to undulate.

His eyes grew keen, hungry.

He’d been reared on the king’s tales of the Legendary. He knew it to be his birthright. Knew it to be his purpose. The purpose his mother had been entirely convinced he’d achieve. The calling that had ultimately led to the irrevocable choice she’d made.

The promise of that power was what drove him to strive, sacrifice, bleed—leave everything he was on the battlefield.

If this Earthen technology delivered on its promise, it could finally tip him over that storied edge. And, it could be key to his liberation from the imposed bond to a woman beneath his standing, and his father’s insidious manipulation.

As he understood the terms of the treaty, Earth was to provide technology, while the Saiyans, in turn, would provide protection— so long as the Icejin were a threat. If _he_ were to defeat the Icejin, the threat would be gone, rendering the treaty moot.

So long as _he_ did not choose to bind the Earth woman by _Saiyan_ tradition, the marriage could be annulled. He would be free, without threat to his birthright, or his crown.

For the first time in months, he allowed himself a grin, mind churning with the possibilities. So entrenched in his thoughts was he, that the pop and consequent inundation of ambient sound barely registered until the king spoke again.

“Well now,” the monarch stated, voice unusually tacit in the suddenly noisy room. “The ceremony to seal the marriage contract is tomorrow. General Bardock and I shall be departing immediately after. He is needed at the blockade and I shall be taking your place at the front. As we advised in your briefing, a corvette has been assigned to Earth, under your command.”

“What I chose to keep out of the briefing—,” the king added, a somewhat hesitant tinge to his inflection. “—is that you are not alone in the chase for the status of the Legendary.”

Immediately, Vegeta stiffened, and whatever expression twisted his features had the king searing him with a glare that threatened swift retribution at the impudence both men knew burned the tip of his tongue to emerge.

The prince, reluctantly, bit his inner cheek and stayed silent… for the time being.

“With my blessing, General Bardock—,” the monarch continued dispassionately, “—has extended the field commission of Lieutenant-Commander to his son, and that of Ensign to a handful of human fighters, who have protected this planet in the past. They will serve as garrison on Earth, also under your command.”

“The Third-Class never even entered Trials!” Vegeta growled in blatant disregard of the king’s unspoken warning, too outraged to abide protocol. “It is an _affront_ to the rank to consider—"

All the air left his lungs, as the king’s fist sank into his solar plexus, hard enough to bend the chestplate inwards. Reflexively, he doubled over, gasping.

Shit.

The prince knew better than to lower his guard when the monarch stood that near. The earliest of the patchwork scars adorning his body were this man’s doing.

He’d forgotten how hard the bastard hit… _and_ that the ruler’s honor was not above a cheap shot to an unsuspecting opponent.

**_Asshole!_ **

“At attention, First Commander,” the king ordered imperiously, leaving no room for insubordination.

Choking back the vitriol, Vegeta quickly straightened, eyes focused on the dais. Not the king. Never the king. Again, he bit the inside of his cheek until salt flooded his mouth to drown out the pain in his torso.

The monarch spoke so close, he felt the heat of his breath on his neck. “You _never_ question _me_ , Prince Vegeta. Is that understood?”

“Yes, Sir!” The automatic response reverberated across the hall. The nails in his tightened fists bit bloody half-moons into his whitened palms, as he struggled with his bruised ego to keep from retaliating.

“Good,” the king whispered, not distancing himself. “Now, allow me to complete my statement. Kakarot—”

The prince fought to maintain the disciplined masque at the mention of his new rival’s name.

“—has struggled through far more in his short life on Earth than any Third-Class would face in Trials. And, he has demonstrated he possesses the same rare Saiyan gift for gaining strength through battle, as you do. As we speak, Kakarot _is_ attempting to achieve the power of the Legendary through means he finds most suitable to him. It would be foolhardy to have one warrior pursue this, when we have been gifted two exemplary candidates,” the monarch reasoned, moving around so that he encompassed Vegeta’s field of vision and he was forced to lock mirrored onyx eyes.

The king’s demeanor softened somewhat when their gazes met. A different, unfamiliar, cadence entered his voice. “Obviously, either of you achieving the Legendary and defeating the Icejin is of unmeasurable value. But, I’d be remissed not to remind you the honor it would bring _our_ proud bloodline, were the Royal Heir to achieve the goal first.”

The king shared a conspiratorial look over his shoulder with his General. He was smirking mischievously when he addressed the prince again. “Also, I _may_ have a standing wager on your success. I know The Crowned Prince would be loath to disappoint his King…”

Instinctually, Vegeta brought a fist to his chest.

A promise. A vow.

The gauntlet had been thrown.

Regardless his personal feelings for this man, his pride was incontrovertibly bound to this challenge now (and really, had it not always been?)

His honor would not abide anything beyond success.

The king smiled, no longer bothering hiding his pride. He stepped back and made a sweeping gesture toward the doorless entryway. “Good! Now, go meet your bride.”

With a nearly imperceptible bow, he turned and started moving toward the exit, mind returning to ruminating the promise of what he would soon achieve.

“Oh, and Prince Vegeta—” the king called after him, making him pause and look over his shoulder, cautiously.

“I’d change out of that armor before going to her.”

The king’s eyes narrowed, appraising him. “You’d be better served to exploit… _other weakness_.”

With a snort, Vegeta continued his departure, pointedly ignoring the boisterous laughter from the king and his General that heralded his exit.

* * *

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I will not excuse my posting schedule. I've been doing this too long to give into guilt over posting slowly. Fan fiction writers put a humongous amount of stress on ourselves to get chapters out as quick as possible, for a myriad of dumb reasons (i.e. preventing loss of reader interest, accommodating requests for updates, the sheer self indulgence of another comment, etc.). It takes a huge, and very damaging toll. In my case, the toll was being diagnosed with clinical depression in 2015, and consequently, told that the sedentary act of writing could only exacerbate it. So, I ask everyone to understand why it will take me time to post.  
> That being said, the reason THIS chapter was delayed is that my neurologist changed my meds. I hope most of my readers have no idea what that means, but neurological disorders are prevalent enough that a good amount of you will know med changes from a neurologist turn your brain to mush. At least, until your brain chemistry adapts to accept the new substance or outright rejects it. Pretty sure I'm rejecting it. LOL!  
> The next chapter is written, but needs extensive editing. It will feature our OTP's first meeting. I want to get it just right for y'all.
> 
> As always, comments are the fuel to my muse (and my fickle motivation to write), so please feel free to click on that button and tell me your thoughts. I don't care if they are negative. All critique is useful.
> 
> :0)


	3. Introductions

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Our protagonists meet. 
> 
> Sparks fly.

* * *

The depot was vast.

Hundreds of aircraft—from huge frigates to variations on single passenger pods, like his own—claimed every square meter of real estate. Some were complete, while some remained in one stage of construction or another. Their designs were amalgamations of those common to craft from every Empire world.

Mechanics and technicians milled about the larger vessels on scaffolds, bringing to mind the tiny animals who made their diets off the parasites from much larger beasts.

His progress through the rows went unhindered, if not completely unnoticed.

Heeding the king’s guidance, he was clad in taupe, loose-fitting trousers of a foreign but soft homespun weave, and a rust (a couple shades lighter than his own skin) sleeveless, long button-less vest of the same material that fluttered about his ankles at every step. Completing the ensemble were comfortable, black civilian boots.

His tail remained wrapped about his waist, serving as an obi, of sorts.

The outfit had not been entirely of his choosing, as he’d been traveling to a battlefront at the time of his forced furlough, and non-combat attire was of no import at the front.

During the months he'd spent traveling to this planet, the king had commissioned a valet and tasked the bookish man with preparing accommodations within Capsule Corp. fit for a Saiyan prince, along with a wardrobe becoming the title. No doubt, the king himself and the few Saiyan soldiers stationed on Earth had provided input on Sadala’s Saiyan clothing trends for completing the task.

The valet had done himself well.

Still, once he’d shown Vegeta to his quarters and pulled out several articles of clothing from the extensive collection for the prince to accept or veto, he had been summarily dismissed.

The prince was too damned grown to necessitate another telling him when and how to wipe his own ass.

The king should have known better.

Nevertheless, Vegeta could appreciate the effort his ex-valet had exacted. It was as inconspicuous a look as the prince could admit himself capable of achieving. Subtlety was hardly a strong suit.

His salience had never been lost on him. No one in the Empire could claim ignorance of the Saiyan Royal family, and he’d inherited the deep widow’s peak and flamed, coarse onyx mane rote to his ancestry for hundreds of years.

His was a visage known… as well as the length of his temper.

Accordingly, every now and again, when a human would notice him, stop what they were doing and stare as he passed, the scattered Empire workers who knew better, would quickly quarter their comrade’s attention back to their task.

His reputation preceded him.

It took him a good ten minutes of walking to reach the center of the warehouse, where, he’d been told, his ‘bride’ was making final checks of what would soon become the Saiyan King’s personal spacecraft.

The ship was hard to miss, standing as tall and wide as the monarch’s Earthen palace, and decked in his planet’s Royal colors: red, gold and blue.

It was… impressive.

Like all the others, scaffolds and workers festooned it, and he found it necessary to round to the aft, scanning face after face, until a flash of blue grazed his periphery.

In person, her coloring was even more striking than it’d appeared on the bio photo provided in the dossier he’d practically been forced to memorize. A bizarre mix of milk-pale skin with cerulean eyes and hair.

He approached slowly, scrutinizing her.

She stood on a narrow lift, dictating commands to a handful of techs below, as she maneuvered the platform closer to an open hatch on the plating of a massive engine.

He shifted closer, watching her bend over the safety bar, nearly double, to reach a tool into the depths of the device’s circuitry.

As she stretched, the skin-tight fabric of her skirt rumpled drastically, causing the slit in the back to creep ever higher. When she’d gone as far as the bar and her own dexterity would allow, the prince was privy to an unobstructed view of the bottom swell of her buttocks, with a peek at dark fabric snuggled in the dip of the apex.

His stomach tightened, and heat rushed his neck. Quickly, he looked away and scowled.

Mistake.

The shift in vantage left him watching the crew at the base of the lift—five males—who were practically salivating over the flesh the woman was unwittingly showcasing.

A muscle in his jaw twitched, possessiveness twisting his gut. His unwitting compliance in the marriage contract notwithstanding, there was no being in the universe deserving of ogling what was technically _the prince’s_.

And, what the fuck were the Arcosian and Elderite even gawking at, anyway? Neither had reproductive organs compatible to mammals. One didn’t even boast external genitalia. What were those sick fucks imagining doing to what had been deigned his?

It took more forbearance than he believed his ever-diminishing source could supply to keep from igniting the assholes to oblivion.

As it was, his rising chi was horripilating his skin, spiking the hairs on his arms.

However, he knew the king valued the specifically selected scientists commissioned in aiding the Briefs’s efforts. There’d be hell to pay if he butchered a couple. He wasn’t sure how the king felt about the human scientists, but he figured they’d stand in the same regard.

Shitheads were not worth it.

“Surely there is _something_ that requires your attention!” he snapped, voice a low growl, promising slow, depraved suffering.

Jumping at his words, the gaggle of idiots scrambled about— two colliding with each other— in a frantic bout to make themselves appear entrenched in other endeavors.

Their terrorized subservience managed to hitch the corner of his mouth.

That was more like it.

“You finally made it!”

The woman’s unnecessarily chirpy voice forced his attention back up. She was lowering the lift, large blue eyes studying him with amused curiosity.

“Those pods really _are_ slow. The adaptions we’re making would’ve had you here in a fifth of the time. But, really, I see them becoming obsolete once spacejets are available for every soldier. Much faster and far less cramped. Though I think leg room would better benefit the likes of Goku and Bardock, huh?”

Seeing as she had intoned the question as a statement, he saw no need to answer. He doubted she’d care if he responded. Just enamored with the sound of her own voice. He’d met the type before.

He hated the type.

There might have been a jab at his height in there somewhere, but her inflection had been observational, not mocking.

And, really, even if she _were_ baiting him with an insult, rising to the bait of the likes of her was well beneath his station.

He remained stoic.

Unperturbed by his silence, she shifted to lean on the safety railing, brazenly running her eyes over him, like a predator deciding how best to devour a fresh kill.

Likely, she expected a reaction: a flush, an uncomfortable shift of his stance.

Pft. Right.

Saiyans were bred to take pride in their achievements. And, to the prince, his body was the pinnacle of accomplishment. This Terran was hardly the first to marvel at it, and he doubted she’d be the last.

After long enough for her staring to count as rude, she raised a hand to the lapel of the cropped jacket she wore and flipped it closer to her mouth.

“Let’s call it a day, folks! Go get cleaned up. Party’s at thirteen hundred tomorrow,” she commanded into a tiny circular pin. Speakers augmented her voice throughout the massive building, echoing.

“And get drunk off your ass!” she added with a wink at him. “God knows I’ll be.”

He hitched a brow, and her smile stilted somewhat.

“Nothing personal, Highness. But, if you’re stuck having your life turn into a dumpster fire, you sure as hell don’t want to ride that out without serious liquid brain-altering courage.”

She added as an afterthought, amused, “And, I have too much shit to get done for heroine.” 

He harrumphed, conceding the point after extrapolating from context what heroine might be.

What he wouldn’t give for the luxury of what she’d described. In his twenty-odd years, he’d never imbibed, always needing his senses sharp. Rarely did he even sleep deep enough to dream.

Again, occupational hazards.

At the woman’s directive, after a few moments, everyone in their vicinity dispersed, heading for one of the octagonal building’s eight bay doors.

Once they were alone, she resumed her assessment of him, slowly descending the metal rungs of the lift. She stopped three rungs from the floor.

His scowl deepened.

The woman knew to exploit the disadvantage low ground imposed on an opponent. Absently, he wondered if he _should_ have worn armor to this meeting, after all.

“Saiyan fashion really doesn’t leave much to the imagination, does it?” she asked in that not-actually-a-question inflection. A broad smile split her face, appreciation dancing in her eyes as they leisured over his physique.

He snorted, and, with matching insolence, gave her a conspicuous once-over, relishing the visual feast the lines of her form, too had to offer.

Her skirt hugged her figure down to her knees, and, under the cropped jacket, she wore a sweater so short, the dip of her sternum was distinct. The thin fabric stretched precariously across the ample swell of her breasts.

He buried his growing esteem under a practiced façade of indifference.

“Yes. Such a species-specific fashion proclivity,” he deadpanned.

Her gaze darted to meet his, and her smile grew impossibly larger, showcasing a line of perfect white teeth. His abdominals tightened.

“Touché,” she conceded with a laugh. Then, with a mock pensive pout, she added, “Then again, my fashion sense is hardly norm here. Most Earth women don’t have _this_ ,”—a hand swept down her form— “to showcase, you understand.”

Her smile returned, and she crossed her arms, compressing her chest, and deepening the cleft of creamy pale flesh peaking from the low hemline of her sweater.

Subconsciously, his gaze tracked the shift in position before quickly dashing off. Feigning apathy, he crossed his wrists behind his back and pretended to be fascinated by whatever one of the techs’ abandoned monitors displayed.

He’d be damned if he’d allow this woman to know she’d affected him.

 _Was_ affecting him.

Damn her.

She chuckled, and, out of his periphery, he caught the glint of something as she tossed it to him.

He caught it easily, on instinct.

“That,” she explained. “Is our first order of business. King’s decree. Every Saiyan stationed or orbiting Earth is required to have it. I will have someone escort you to the med bay from here to have it implanted.”

Vegeta’s nose wrinkled at the term ‘implanted’, as he inspected the small object in his open palm. It was shaped like the wishbone of a small bird, with two hair-like tendrils protruding from its apex. Tiny lights blinked at the tips of the filaments. The material was an odd, pearlescent ingot, and disproportionately dense for such a small thing. He shot a suspicious look at the woman.

“Please,” she huffed, still smiling, though now it looked a little vicious. “Do you really expect me to allow a gaggle of potential wer-monkeys to galivant about my planet without precautions?”

She gestured proudly at the device he held. “That, goes right above the base of your tail. I even made it gold to match your station. It won’t interfere with—” she gesticulated a hand about, “—whatever it is you people use the appendage for, normally. But, it will disrupt the bio-chemical synapse response to Blutz Waves. Our moon is full monthly. No one wants a handful of mindless, impossibly powerful, forty-story gorillas running a muck every few weeks. Agreed?”

Vegeta could find no fault in that argument, though he wasn’t looking forward to whatever procedure installing the thing entailed.

Out the corner of his eye, he watched her descend the last of the steps to come stand before him.

Too close.

Apparently, she was gifted with neither a concept of personal space, nor one of healthy self-preservation.

“Hey,” she said softly.

Warily, he brought his attention back to her, and was taken aback by the earnestness of her large, round eyes. She was still smiling at him. “It’s painless, and it will only take ten minutes.”

Her gaze shifted to study one of his more impressive scars. A jagged discolored thing, cleaving a path from his right shoulder, over his bicep, nearly to his inner elbow.

“Not that you’re a stranger to pain. Looks like you’ve had considerably worse,” she mused, bringing a hand to trace the slightly puckered skin.

Fuck, her hands were _soft_. Even to the half dead nerve endings of the scar. The physiological response was instant, making him glad for the loose fit of his trousers.

Quickly, he grasped her wrist, halting her.

She gave him an exasperated glare. “Really?” 

“We are hours away from being _married_ , and you’re shy about me _touching_ you?”

She’d lazed the question with just enough challenge that it would be an affront to his pride were he not to capitulate to her.

Clever minx.

With a sigh, he released her, and she returned to the studious tracing of the old, grotesque injury.

Fighting to keep his voice from betraying the flood of new sensations her touch unleashed, he said, “Touching is hardly part of this arrangement.”

He shifted slightly, pulling away from her torturous touch in a manner casual enough to appease his ego. He added haughtiness to his tone. “All I require from you is a training facility, boarding, and sustenance. Beyond that, there is little need for any prolonged interaction.”

Instead of the offense he’d expected, her expression was beaming when she looked back at him. “True. I make you a Super Saiyan. You destroy the Icejin. We’re both out of this farce of a marriage.”

So blatant must his shock have been that she crossed her arms, and snickered arrogantly. “I’m a genius, guy. And, I’ve read your bio. Your intellect is not par for your species. Why would it surprise you that I would come up with the same _out_ of this as you?”

He didn’t respond, just narrowed his eyes at her. He had underestimated her.

A mistake he would not repeat.

“Also, your psychological profile reads like a serial killer’s.”

“Not surprising,” he retorted, blandly. “I kill with consistent regularity.”

With a dangerous glint to his eyes, he added, “You can deem it serial, if it suits your fancy. You are aware of my profession, are you not?”

“Soldiers _are not_ murderers,” she parried with that unflinching moral certainty only someone with no fucking clue what taking life entailed, always seemed to possess.

He shrugged. “If you say so—” 

She brought a hand back to his arm, voice growing low and conspiratorial. “Still, if we’re stuck in this situation for the foreseeable future, it’s nice to know we’ll at least have something… nice… to look at,” she said with a salacious grin. Her fingers began tracing circles, he was damned sure afforded nothing to her clinical assessment of his scar.

“And… even if we’re not really married, we’re allies, right? Allies can be civil. Allies can talk…”

She was so close. He could feel the heat radiating off her silken-looking skin. The scent of her: something heady, and floral, and brimming with pheromones.

He swallowed thickly.

Damn her eyes.

Her freakish mind.

The way every question wasn’t a question, but a veiled challenge.

And that godforsaken smile.

She was dangerous.

Oblivious to his inner-spar, she continued, conversationally, “Where did you get this? It looks like something tried to have your arm off.”

Without thinking, as most of his faculties were centered on keeping his biology from betraying the cataclysm her nearness was inciting, he huffed a low, “Trials”, in response.

Instantly, her ministrations ceased, and her gaze focused on him, curious.

Shit, she needed to stop setting those guileless, mock-innocent eyes on him.

“I’ve heard references to that everywhere in the databases I’ve hac—” she checked herself, prompting a curious look from the prince, before clearing her throat.

“—been supplied with… for research,” she finished lamely, poorly masking the slip.

She continued quickly, not allowing him to dwell on, or question the faux pas. “Trials, I mean. They seem a central part to your culture, but its only ever referenced, never explained. What is it? Is it school?”

He repressed a snort. Labeling Trials ‘school’ was accurate only in the vaguest of sense.

At the dawn of Sadala’s Spring season, all children of seven were to report to their regions’ ports, where they were shuttled to an asteroid belt at the fringe of the Saiyan solar system.

Upon arrival, each child was assigned a billet, according to gender, and administered a screening— similar to what they had received at birth. Based on that screening, each child was ranked: Super-Elite, Elite, First-Class, Second-Class, and Third-Class.

For the most part, as was the case of his Super-Elite status, the rankings assigned at birth proved infallible. However, a rare few had their rankings either raised or demoted.

His brother had been ranked First-Class at birth, but it had been lowered to Third-Class at Trials ranking, much to the shame of the king.

General Bardock had been ranked Third-Class at birth, and only saved from being shipped off to the depths of space due to a dearth of warriors the year of his birth. He’d ascended to the rank of Elite at Trials.

The Saiyan Royal family and the Tuffle scientists, who’d designed and implemented the screenings, admitted to a margin of error. However, both agreed it was an acceptable marginal anomaly within an otherwise necessary system.

Rankings determined difficulty of curriculum. No one was served by sending a Third-Class to a certain death at a Super-Elite curriculum. The skill of even the weakest Saiyan warriors was priced throughout the worlds.

Once syllabus was determined, the children were given a week of rudimentary survival training before being segregated by rank, and another vessel came to collect them. They were dropped off at different asteroids on the belt, each terraformed to native climates of worlds comprising the Empire, and inhabited by creatures native to said worlds.

The children were then left to fend for themselves for a month, given only the coordinates to a rendezvous point on the opposite side of the asteroid, and warning that failure to meet the shuttle at that spot by the appointed time, would result in waiting another month for collection.

Children were left nothing but the clothes on their backs. They had to figure out shelter, feed themselves, and protect themselves from the many predators, and, often, other children, who were their competition for the limited resources.

After the month’s deployment, they spent a week back at the billet, where they received martial tutelage from veteran warriors.

At week’s end, they were deployed to a different asteroid: a new hell.

Once a year, the children were provided a parcel from their family with ten pieces of clothing and a pair of footwear, to accommodate their growing bodies. Children whose growth pattern was above norm, or those who experienced unpremeditated growth spurts, often went months clad in whatever animal pelts they’d been able to scrounge at their last deployment.

Or, they went nude.

Nudity was no mark of shame. It was a sign of a body growing strong, against impossible odds.

Lack of shoes, on the other hand, was a crippling detriment. Often, fights to the death broke out in billets over footwear. Adults did not interfere. It would be counterproductive to the point of Trials.  

 _That_ , somewhat thankfully, at least had been one challenge the prince had been spared. Like the king, his physicality had never matched up with his fighting prowess, not even as an adult. He was glad enough he had an inch on his sire’s admittedly diminutive stature. Though his mother was a head taller than the king, he had not benefited from those genes.

At least, he was better off than poor Tarble, who, after also inheriting the king’s stature, as opposed to that of the ruling Royal Consort’s, and the deprivation of Trials, had only reached a height several inches below that of their father’s.

Trials were culling grounds for the weak. They were purposed to excise a toll.

When all was said and done, thirty-two percent of all children who entered Trials did not survive to seventeen, the age of Commencement. And, no child raised on Sadala was spared Trials.

It was the way of things.

Not of a mind to indulge the woman’s obvious interest in a ritual so ingrained in the fiber of Saiyan identity, Vegeta snorted the vague reply, “Of a sort.”

Clearly unimpressed, the woman scoffed. “Fine, keep your secrets. You and your father deserve each other, you know? Both of you are bastards.”

He smirked at her. “Someone with your reputation for intelligence should appreciate the flaw in referring to a king and prince as bastards. It is the purity of breeding, after all, that imparts merit to the title.”

“Smart ass.”

His grin grew. Two tiny lines appeared between her eyebrows when she pouted, as she was in that moment. It was… appealing. Distractedly, he wondered what other expressions he could elicit from that expressive face, before his rational mind engaged and quickly dammed that line of thinking.

He had _zero_ use for inane fantasies.

This encounter needed to end. In spite of his warring pride, he needed to distance himself from this woman, to assess, find a strategy. Plan a proper offensive.

Infusing as much tedium into his tenor as he could manage, he sighed, “If we are done here, there are other far more pressing matters needing my attention…”

With that infuriating smile, she shifted forward, and he had to suppress warrior instinct instilled since birth to keep from shifting into a defensive stance.

This woman was a speck.

She was no threat.

She was nothing.

**_Nothing!_ **

The woman stood her ground and brought her lips close to his ear, the skin of her cheek coming so near, the invisible down of her skin ghosted over his cheek.

He fought to suppress a shudder.

“With a little imagination, I think we can make this… bearable,” she whispered. “Don’t you agree?”

Then, she pulled back and there was a new heat in her eyes, her scent had gained a tangy quality that made his pulse rush.

Fuck nothing.

This woman _was_ a threat.

One unlike _any_ he’d ever faced.

For the sake of all he’d worked for, still had to strive to achieve— he needed to stay the fuck away from her.

“Now, let’s go see about getting this show on the road, shall we—” she purred, gracefully sidestepping, and moving past him toward an exit.

He stood there several moments, watching her leave, not wanting her to think she could order him about like her techhead minions.

His eyes navigated the river of her movements, fixating on the hypnotic heave and ebb of her glutes with each dainty step.

Damn her!

He was royally fucked. 

* * *

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fan Art for this Chapter by the incomparable rutbisbe:  
> [](http://tinypic.com?ref=2h8a15f)


	4. Commandments

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bulma and Vegeta lay out rules to their imposed relationship.

* * *

Patience was not a quality one ascribed to Vegeta.

Once his mind set to a purpose, not a moment was spared in achieving said purpose.

It was his nature.

A failing and a strength.

It was also the reason the prince of all Saiyans stood, an hour before dawn, facing the chamber door of the woman both Saiyan and Human law had deigned his wife less than twenty-four hours before.

Nearly breaking the delicate chime panel with how often he depressed it.

After far too long to be respectful of a prince’s station (and ego), the automatic white lacquered doors parted with a hiss to present a very vexed Bulma Briefs.

She was bedraggled, and obviously suffering the aftereffects of excessive drink.

It took a moment for her eyes to focus properly, but, once they did, they narrowed viciously. And, though the irises seared death, the whites were heavily veined, and the skin beneath was distended, marred by the bleeding, dried remnants of cosmetics.

The slump to her posture and the elbow braced on the door casing with a hand supporting her temple, evidenced she was nursing what had to be a wicked headache.

Her hair’s elaborate updo from the previous day (which she’d evidently neglected to disassemble prior to sleep), lay a rumpled mess of cascading blue curls and precariously loose pearl-tipped pins.

She was drowning in a shirt a fair three sizes too large, the stretched neckline exposing the slender length of her neck, her clavicle, a shoulder, and the start of curve to one of her breasts.

Vegeta swallowed thickly, and quickly diverted his gaze back to the wreck that was her face, where, surely, he would find kindling to fuel the disgust he instinctually knew this spectacle should elicit.

Nevertheless, that spark failed to ignite. Even at it’s worse (and this _had_ to be an exemplary approximation of the worst), her aesthetic betrayed no true flaws.

She was spectacular.

“It’s too fucking early for this shit,” she spat, dropping her arm to turn back into her chambers.

With a speed her condition should not allow, she traipsed through her receiving room, to an already open door to the left.

The prince suppressed a groan and followed, taking the still-open door, and the lack of request to keep out as invitation.

He pointed out the obvious. “I have not even stated a reason for seeking you out.”

“Too fucking early for  _seeking shit,_ ” she parried, not missing a beat.

As they progressed through the suite, he circled a look about the large space. It looked like ground zero of a chi blast. Furniture lay upturned. Bottles, clothing, footwear and half-consumed plates of delicacies littered the floor and every still-erect surface.

His nose crinkled.

The fuck had gone on in here last night?

He was forced to stop short a few steps inside the sleep chambers, when the woman unceremoniously faceplanted onto the nest of blankets and pillows that made her bed, causing the tent shirt to flag for a second, offering a glimpse of blue-clad buttocks and bare, creamy upper thighs, before mercifully fluttering down.

That increasingly familiar clench of his abdomen came, and he quickly listed his eyes to settle on the adjacent wall, which was decked in rows of stuffed animals.

Stuffed Animals? How _old_ was she?

Shaking his head, the prince cleared his throat.

“As per the terms of our agreement, I require access and instruction in the use of my new training facility, immediately,” he stated with as much superiority as his rough baritone could manage.

“I require a high dose of ibuprofen and strong caffeine,” she muttered without shifting, words muffled by the bedding. “But you don’t see _me_ bitching to you about it, do you?”

Vegeta scoffed, crossing his arms high on his chest. “The deplorable state you’re in is of your own doing. Serves you right. It is beneath both me and your new station as my mate, whatever debauchery you indulged last evening.”

He approached until his knees grazed the edge of the bed, wielding his imposing deportment as the weapon he’d sharpened it to be. “Now, you _will_ get up, and you _will_ comply with my request!”

She shifted just enough that he could make out her one-eyed glare. “FUCK. YOU.”

Strangely, instead of automatically triggering his short temper, his mind rendered the jab at face value, forcing his brow to hitch, his gaze tracing the lines of her form, prostrated languorous and enticing across the disheveled bed.

The woman noticed, and quickly flopped onto her back, propping herself on her elbows. For an instant, two very dichotomic emotions flashed in her eyes, before she disparaged both and sneered with mocking disdain, “I’d rather have Frieza.”

The prince gave an aloof shrug. And, keeping the amusement from his demeanor and tenor with some effort, proceeded to call her bluff.

“Lizard’s androgynous.”

Then, for the sake of seeing her riled, he added a fib of his own, in the same detached tone. “Still, he’d likely find you half as objectionable as I do.”

As the predictable fire ignited her eyes, he finished, “You should stop offering yourself up for whoring, however. You never know when someone less discerning might take you up on the offer—

“—your collaboration, notwithstanding.”

The woman shot straight into a fully sitting position, face flushed with rage. “Sorry, Highness,” came the riposte, dripping sarcasm. The title spat like poison. “Next time, I’ll be sure to make it, ‘fuck you up the ass with a rusted steel rod’, to avoid misunderstanding. Pardon my forgetting your species has the comprehension skills of lemurs.”

“Though, given the vibe _you_ give off—” she added mockingly, tiredly, slumping back to press a pillow over her face. “— _that_ may just come off as foreplay.”

The moment her vantage was obstructed, the prince allowed himself the quirk of his lip he’d been repressing.

She was something else.

In all his life, no being had ever had the audacity (stupidity) to speak to him in such a manner.

If nothing else, entertainment value might be sourced of this arrangement.

“You have twenty minutes to compose yourself and meet me in the kitchen. If you’re late, I maim one of your lesser assistants, someone easily replaceable.”

Briskly, he made to stomp out of her bedroom, pausing instinctively to avoid the large, bejeweled pillow that flew a couple feet past to collide with the wall. He spared an unimpressed glance over his shoulder to find the woman glowering at him.

“You wouldn’t dare!”

He shifted, so the half grin, brimming with dark promise, was plainly visible.

“Be late and _test_ me.”

A lamp shattered at his heels, as he took his leave and started for the outermost door of her chambers, a wide grin still splitting his features. The reason for which, he knew, would be dangerous ground for introspection, were he callous enough to consider it.

~~0~~

Vegeta was sat at the counter, platters off eggs, bacon, cured ham, potatoes, fruit, and a plethora of other Earthen breakfast foods before him.

Upon entering the manor’s kitchen, he’d found Dr. Briefs’s mate, inexplicably, awake and far too exuberant for the early hour. She’d acted ecstatic at his entrance, as if her night had been spent in expectation of his arrival (had been for all he knew of the flamboyant creature’s habits).

And, though he had barely acknowledged her, the queer female had started jabbering on about having his morning meal ready, and how a growing boy like him needed his calories.

He’d categorized her simple at ‘boy’, and proceeded to phase her out, gorging himself on the fruits of her labors with relish.

She need not be intelligent to fulfill his needs. Beasts of burden were dumb as rocks and still served their function.

“We need to set some ground rules, Vegeta.”

The prince didn’t pause eating, watching his newly-appointed mate enter the kitchen from his periphery. She made a beeline for the coffee machine that already proffered a brewed pot.

As she moved about, coming into fuller view, he noted she’d washed and corralled the unruly waves of hair into a ponytail. The cold fire stare she seared at him, too, did not go unnoticed.

Nevertheless, it softened as she turned to her mother to place a kiss to the blonde’s cheek, and offer a, “Morning, Mom. That smells amazing. I’ll take a plate whenever you can manage”, before coming around to sit beside him.

Glaring.

“You’re an inconsiderate asshole,” she said, flatly.

The affront was immediate, forcing his eyes to dash to hers and his fists to clench, twisting the utensils he’d been using beyond recognition. It was all he could manage to keep from striking out.

Anyone. _Anyone_ else, would already be bleeding.

At whatever evil his demeanor augured, her eyes narrowed, feckless, unyielding. “I’m _not_ pretending this… thing we have going is real when we’re alone, Vegeta.”

Stunned speechless by either her insolence, or her ignorance—unsure which was more egregious—his astounded gaze listed from the imbecilic woman to the blonde bustling about the kitchen, humming to herself.

“Oh, please," the woman scoffed, keenly tracking the eye motion. "Don’t let her looks fool you. Mom’s nearsighted as a mole, two-thirds deaf, and far too vain to consider either glasses or hearing aides.”

She swept a hand in an aloof gesture, as the aforementioned approached, bearing a plate with a pitiful amount of food. Were he not contemplating how best to eviscerate her, Vegeta might have entertained concern over her poor nourishment.

As it was, he was too absorbed with keeping the deformed butter knife in his white-knuckled grip from piercing one of those liquid blue eyes, clear to the frontal lobe.

The, “Thanks, Mom,” and corresponding, “Welcome, dear!” barely penetrated the cloud of rage, before the woman’s attention was back on him.

She continued in utter nonchalance, as if death incarnate were not perched at her side.

“Also, by the time I was four, whatever fantasyland my mother lives in far outdid anything I could come up with. She’s oblivious. We’re alone,” she concluded, flatly, bringing a loaded fork to her mouth with a casual shrug.

**_What the actual fuck?_ **

His jaw muscle spasmed erratically, his struggle to find his words through the anger, ground his voice to gravel. “You will still know your place as ma—”

“Don’t feed me that bullshit, Vegeta,” she interrupted, matching his vehemence.

Before he could parry, she trundled on. “Saiyan men _don’t want_ a ragdoll any more than I’m willing to pass myself off as one. Lieutenant Fasha told me as much. She and I had a few interesting conversations in the three months it took you to get here. She was the only female Saiyan in the king’s coterie, so they commanded her to educate me in protocol expected of the Crowned Prince's ‘wife’.”

Vegeta sat dumbfounded, shifting between ire and curiosity. He watched the woman bring another bite to her mouth, chew, and continue in that conversational tone she seemed to take on whenever citing data.

“She told me your people only respect strength. So, getting the ever-loving-shit beaten out of you by your partner is a kink, or whatever. Something about proving worth to pass on genes, or something equally regressed. Most animals on this planet do that, too…”

Vegeta noticed her attitude shift as she spoke, loosen. The more she rambled, the more her anger diffused. 

“Anyway, there’s no expectancy of subservience from one mate to another in your culture, so don’t try to feed me that misogynistic shit. For Saiyans, sexes are equal. Huh, humans could actually take a page from that book,” she finished, fully engrossing her attention in her food.

The prince watched her eat, assimilating what she’d said, before his right hand unclenched and came to rub at the bridge of his nose.

He closed his eyes and took a few calming breaths to arrange his thoughts and marshal his temper.

If rumor was to be believed, Fasha, the only female soldier in Bardock’s regiment, secretly vied for the opportunity to take Captain Gine’s place as the General’s consort, were the Captain ever to fall in the call of duty. It had even been speculated that this was the reason Fasha had postponed—at her twentieth year of service, as was customary—her audience with her cast’s matchmaker, where she would be assigned a mate matching her rank.

If the rumors proved true, it stood to reason that Fasha would oversimplify Saiyan mating in the fashion the Briefs woman had described. Fasha was a mouse pining after a lion. How else was she to keep hope, if not through delusion?

After a few moments of contemplation, he'd composed a proper response. When he spoke, his voice still carried an edge of repressed anger. “You were… misinformed, Woman.”

He paused for her attention to shift, narrowing his dark gaze to scrutinize her reactions, before continuing. “Under normal circumstances, Saiyans are matched by rank. Therefore, one mate is _incapable_ of subjugating the other. However, respect _is_ still owed and expected. And, ours are hardly _normal circumstances_.”

The woman sat straighter in her stool, turning fully toward him, completely entranced, eyes burning with desire to learn the true ways of his people. His chest swelled, flattered at her interest in his words, his people’s traditions.

He schooled his features to masque it.

“The foremost grievance I had with the king arranging this—” his finger traced a line between them “—is the intrinsic disparity of power between a Saiyan Super Elite and _any_ female of your species. Saiyan nature will always be dominance. It is bound to our genetic composition. I can destroy you with a twitch of a finger. We are not and never will be equals. And, I, as all Saiyans, was bred to respect power above all else. You can see how this poses a problem in our predicament.”

She contemplated his words, that machine mind of hers working a mile a minute. Her voice had a contemplative quality when she finally spoke. “Given enough time to study the databases the king left at my disposal, I could develop a way to hurt you, maybe even kill you. You know this. It’s why you’re depending on me to help you get strong enough to beat the Icejin.”

A triumphant smile split her features. “I’d say, I’m every bit your equal, Highness. Just in a different way.”

He suppressed a grin at her gumption.

“Well, we will certainly see, won’t we?”

They both retuned to eating in the newly-established comfortable silence. After several moments, the woman broke it.

“Nothing you said changes the fact that you wouldn’t want me subservient,” she pointed out, matter-of-factly, somehow still threading the statement with challenge.

Vegeta continued eating, sparing her an askance glance. “You’re assuming my proclivities in par with those of my people. Was it not you who labeled me an outlier?”

“True,” she acquiesced, grudgingly, and he sensed, more than saw her shift closer.

He nearly choked when the soft flesh of her hand alighted on his upper back, which lay bare, as he’d discarded his shirt earlier to run through katas.

He'd needed to kill time until the hour was not too ungodly to call on the woman.

His eyes listed closed, and he fought hard to repress a shudder as those dexterous fingers traced the course of yet another scar across his trapezium.

“But, this is not the body of someone who backs down from a challenge.”

Her breath heated over his skin with her words, she was _that_ close.

“I think you would much prefer me… challenging…”

Instinctively, a hand shot out to grasp her arm, breaking the contact.

“What did I tell you about touching,” he said, surprising himself with how low and rough his voice rang to his own ears. How labored the breaths coming through his flared nostrils.

She had no fucking idea, what her touch unleashed in him.

Neither did he… really.

“This is why we need to set some ground rules,” she crooned triumphantly, and he sneered, dropping her hand on the counter with no ceremony.

With a click of his tongue, he returned to eating, inwardly focusing on slowing his pulse and quieting his chi, hoping that would serve to alleviate the instantaneous physiological consequence of her touch.

He had shit to do. He’d be damned if he’d parade the evidence of how she’d affected him upon standing to accomplish said shit. The material of the compression shorts he’d chosen for his workout would do nothing in the service of concealing his predicament. She was too close to even adjust himself without garnering attention.

Oblivious to the prince's inner turmoil, the woman spoke on in a chirpy tone. “So, first rule: no touching unless the wish to be touched is specifically communicated.”

Mouth still full and concentration otherwise engaged, he harrumphed a distracted consent.

“One caveat,” she amended, prompting him to side-eye her. “Nonverbal communication counts.”

Vegeta shifted further, the knit to his brow making plain his confusion.

“Body language,” she elaborated. “And eyes. Eyes can speak entire thoughts and desires far better than words.” Her stare locked on his, pointedly.

Taking advantage of the unguarded moment, his mouth twisted into a half grin, intrigued at the proposal. Were his faculties completely in order, the next word would never have left him.

“Agreed.”

She answered the grin with a smile of her own.

It grew an edge with her next words. “Next rule: you don’t threaten to hurt my people—ever. You’re here to protect us. That’s the deal. You and your soldiers will not hurt a single person on my planet, or your king’s compact is forfeit.”

At this, the prince turned fully in his stool to face her and crossed his arms, leaving his breakfast forgotten. He narrowed his eyes and stated with a knowing glare, “The king’s compact states my forces are not to _kill_ any of your people.”

He allowed his gaze to grow cruel, languishing it across her form. “Would you like me to list the ways three months of indoctrination in human biology taught me to damage it without threat of mortality?”

His blood spiked at the fear that sparked the pools of her eyes, before they darkened with determination and righteous indignation. Not that those helped slow his pulse.

“Only a gargantuan pussy would need to threaten impossibly weaker beings to stroke his ego,” she argued, heatedly. “The king didn’t threaten to get our cooperation. He made his case with civility. You, who intended to inherit the throne of your race, are so much less a man than the king?”

His pulse skyrocketed for a completely different reason.

“You know nothing of the Saiyan king’s design, stupid woman!” he snarled, coming to his feet to loom over her, tightening his arms across his chest to keep from throttling her.

How she tested the limits of his equinimity!

“You have no inkling what the king is capable of!”

“No, I don’t,” she spat back, not backing down, even as her head tipped to match his sneer. “But, I’m stuck married to the asshole’s son for the foreseeable future. And, I need to know _that guy_ is man enough to acknowledge how cowardly hurting helpless people actually is!”

He reared back with a snort, appraising her. Considering.

In spite of the vulgar, crude delivery, he was forced to concede the validity of her argument. He’d always held his honor above that of the king’s. And he had no taste for cruelty, beyond that which battle necessitated. Or, to make a point to an enemy.

However, he was not one to back down without, at minimum, a qualified victory.

“Neither I nor my forces will threaten your people,” he conceded.

When her shoulders slumped relieved, he qualified with a dangerous undercurrent to his tone, “However, I get to threaten _you_.”

She was taken aback. “You need me, shithead!”

In less than a blink, both her delicate wrists were trapped in his grip, forcing a surprised gasp from her.

Her eyes grew large with panic for a moment, before a different emotion bled in, weighing her lids. The spicy, floral musk of her scent, with which he’d swiftly become familiar, gained that odd zest of the previous day.

The one that, inexplicably, blazed his synapses.

“I need your hands and your mind, Woman.”

Subconsciously, his thumb traced the soft skin of one inner wrist, relishing the texture. His voice came a guttural growl. “You would serve my purposes every bit as efficiently sans kneecaps.”

He seared a glare into her, watching her irises swell to overtake the blue, the lids descend lower. She swallowed thickly, before speaking in a near whisper. “Fine.”

Then, she cleared her throat and stated more firmly, though still hoarse, “Fine. Threaten me all you want.”

Hands still captured in his grip, she got to her feet. From the new position, it was still necessary to incline her head to match his stare, but not as acutely. So flustered she'd made him when they had met in the depot, that he had failed to notice he boasted only a handful of inches of height on her.

Discovering this idiocrasy was somehow...alluring.

The shift in stance brought her impossibly closer, and the heat of her radiated clear through that oversized shirt, to his bare torso.

“See how well that works out for you—,” she whispered harshly, mouth inches from his. He didn’t miss that spare nth of a second when she broke the staring joust to look at his lips, making his lower abdominals (and something lower still) twitch.

“Next rule,” she veritably exhaled into him, further rousing his senses. “I get my time. I worked my ass off for months, compiling a fleet and armory for the king. This is my honeymoon. After I show you the ropes of the gravity room, you leave me be for two weeks, minimum. After that, you will call on me only during reasonable hours, and at my availability. No more banging on my door before dawn. Got it?”

He couldn’t help the half grin he bestowed upon her. She was still demanding, challenging.

Even in her compromised position.

Even when he literally held her life in his hands.

She was fucking suicidal.

She was fucking magnificent.

Whatever his demeanor, she took it for acquiescence. And, with little effort, as he'd had no true designs on restraining her, she twisted free of his hand and moved away, toward the far end to the large kitchen, where a wall of floor-to-ceiling windows held a glass door.

“Good. Now, let’s get this done. I have a spa appointment at nine.”

* * *

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Editing is killing me. This was three times as long and I ended up having to split it to make it work. Then I had to rewrite it twice to make Vegeta come off as less of a dick.  
> It's hard making Vegeta less of a dick, people.  
> At least the next chapter is mostly written, but I see myself rewriting it a few times. He's being a complete asshole in that one and I need to pair that down.
> 
> Still not happy with how I'm posting this so there will be edits over the next few days.
> 
> :O)


	5. Routines

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Vegeta establishes a routine to streamline his attempt at reaching the power of Super Saiyan.

* * *

“The design—,” the woman explained, holding a palm to the pad at the door and leading them inside the spherical vessel. The large space flooded with light the moment they set foot inside.

“—is predicated on the training Goku is undergoing—”

“What sort of training _is_ Kakarot doing?” he interrupted, without halting their clockwise tour of the facility. “The king provided few details before his departure.”

She did pause, and stared at him, mouth thinned. “Why do you insist on calling Son that? It’s not his name.”

The grip his hand maintained around the opposite wrist, above the base of his tail tightened marginally. He spared her a bland look. “General Bardock’s service to his people has been above reproach for decades. Accordingly, the name he bestowed upon his son is due regard.”

“Yeah,” she scoffed, looking slightly peeved. “Sending an infant into the depths of space to fend for itself doesn’t betray the parental naming rights, at all. Only reason he has _any_ name is his grandfather found him, nurtured him, and gave him one, after he suffered fucking _brain damage_ and forgot who he was. Putting a baby through that breaks the ties, in my opinion.”

“Your opinion is not a Saiyan’s. Therefore, its value in this context is dubious, at best.”

She shot him a nasty sneer, which he answered with an aloof, one-shouldered shrug.

She could twist her fine features up any which fashion suited her fancy.

Didn’t change facts.

As retaliation to the dismissal, came the last act he ever would’ve fathomed.

She struck him.

Actually, fucking _struck_ him.

Her all-but-nonexistent strength could not injure him. And, she immediately clutched the hand that’d impacted his chest, releasing an impressive stream of expletives under her breath.

But still, it was the principle of the thing.

**_Who the fuck does she think she is?_ **

In a breath, the woman found herself pinned to the wall by a forearm braced across her collarbone.

She let out a squeak.

“How dare you raise a hand to the Prince of all Saiyans!” he snarled, voice teeming with menace, face inches from hers.

In response, instead of squirming, screaming, pleading for the mercy his magnanimity would incontrovertibly refuse –as was duly expected of anyone (everyone) who’d suffered the misfortune of finding themselves in so compromised a position with the prince— the woman dashed his already low estimation of her sanity.

With eyes brimming irascible determination, her face tipped forward to smother his mouth with hers.

Shock forced him back as effectively as a physical blow, fingers coming to his lips, irrationally thinking they’d discover an injury.

Blood.

Something other than the bizarre tingling sensation, and the foreign—if not unpleasant— taste of ‘other’ his tongue registered upon flicking experimentally across his lips. He sent her an openly scandalized look.

“Hey, you touched me first. That constitutes a desire for reciprocation, in my book,” she said in an infuriatingly clinical tone.

She wrung her hand violently before cradling it to her chest.

“God, what are you bastards made of?” she moaned, walking off, presumably to resume her tour of the facility. “I need to get ice on this or it’ll swell to twice its size by the time I make the spa.”

He remained frozen where he stood, mind blazing to compartmentalize what had just transpired. Eventually, he moved, quicker than the limited human visual spectrum could track, to stand before her.

She startled, but he ignored her.

“First of all,” he snarled, pointing a finger, trembling with the effort to rein his rage, at her chin. “You hit _me_ first. And I _know_ , at no moment, did I communicate a desire for violence, verbal or otherwise. Second, my touching you was incidental to puzzling out how best to carry out the aforementioned shattering of your kneecaps. What the fuck kind of reaction is _that_ to impending bodily harm?”

“I didn’t _hit_ you, Vegeta,” she said blandly, slowly, as if explaining walking to an infant. “I swatted at you because you were being a dick. I was making a point. I’m not an idiot. I don’t even know what your skin is made of, much less how to inflict pain on it.”

She sidestepped to continue toward her destination, adding over her shoulder, “And, I told you we’d see how threatening me worked out for you. It turns out, this was a learning experience for us both. Now, I need to finish here and get a cold compress on my hand. Can we move on?”

He stared blankly, dully, ruminating her words, and mentally retracing the last few moments.

Loath as he was to admit it—and, certainly, that acknowledgement would stay forever ensconced in the catacombs of his psyche— she was right.

He’d been riling her, purposely dismissing her insights as if she were a simpleton.

When angered, her neck and cheeks stained an intriguing rose hue. He’d grown to… appreciate… the phenomenon in the short time he’d known her. 

Rationally, could he fault her blindly lashing out?

Certainly, the being feckless enough to speak to him in such a manner would suffer far worse a fate than a swat.

He huffed out a breath, bringing a hand to run through his coarse hair, as he warily approached. Against his better judgement, he extended something of an armistice.

“The purpose to Saiyan names differs from that of Earthlings.”

Her eyes grew large in that way that indicated she was enthralled, prompting an exaggerated roll of his eyes.

He suppressed a sigh, wishing he could take it back, leave her stewing. Now, she expected _elaboration_.

Screw it.

He went ahead and released a long breath, and explained, halfheartedly, “Humans number in the billions, because you procreate like all creatures comprising the lowest echelon of their habitat’s food chain, and have systematically eradicated your world’s innate systems for culling lesser genetics. Your numbers necessitate the use of surnames to distinguish endless, globally branching and diverging familial lines.”

The woman hedged closer, head tipping thoughtfully. A captive audience.

“Saiyans number in the hundreds of thousands, maybe a couple million? I haven’t kept abreast of census data,” Vegeta continued in the same detached tone. “Because our numbers are few, clan lines are easily traced, and a child of higher rank born to a low rank clan is extremely rare. No Saiyan in their right mind would mate beneath their clan. It would lessen the odds of producing strong offspring. Per Saiyan tradition, clans appropriate several hundred names, which pass down generation after generation, making surnames redundant.”

“Therefore,” he concluded. “When General Bardock granted his son a name, he also perpetuated a portion of his clan’s tradition. Even if that tradition is of third-class rank, Bardock has earned honor for his clan, and therefore deserves his clan’s tradition be respected.”

“But—” the woman spoke introspectively, pinching her bottom lip between her teeth, drawing his gaze. Now that he’d sampled the tiny, plump strip of flesh, he knew it would irrevocably brand his memory.

“—Bardock is not a third-class. He’s an Elite. Is giving his son a third-class name not a break in tradition?”

That mind of hers was already working to piece, puzzle and bridge unexplored concepts between his words. He allowed his demeanor to soften somewhat, impressed.

“Bardock was born to a third-class clan and shifted ranks at seven. His mate is of Elite rank from birth. His sons should have been born to the same prestigious clan, but—as the general descends from lesser lineage— this did not occur. Raditz was born a first-class, and, appropriately, given a first-class clan name. Kakarot was deemed a third-class at birth, and was named for Bardock’s father. Tradition makes concessions for anomalies.”

“Oh,” she breathed, understanding. “So, Goku naming his son Gohan breaks Saiyan tradition?”

Vegeta shrugged. “Kakarot lost claim to clan and birth rank once he failed to complete his mission here. Bardock technically disowned him years ago, when he believed him dead. Due to some nascent sentimental streak, the General deigned to assign him a military rank with the king’s blessing. Only soldiers stationed to Earth will ever acknowledge it, however. What the likes of Kakarot names his offspring is of no consequence to Saiyans. Neither they nor Kakarot will ever achieve citizenship on Sadala.”

The woman hummed to herself, lost in her own thoughts as she completed the trek to the room's center, where a cylindrical column stretched floor to ceiling. He followed.

Upon reaching the panel, she placed a hand to it, causing the plates to illuminate, and showcase the universal language scripting on the keys. The woman had learned to read and write the language in a matter of months. Again, he found his esteem of her growing.

And, as quickly, submerge under the practiced, imperious masque.

“He’s training on King Kai’s planet,” she suddenly blurted in a quiet voice, catching him entirely off guard.

“What?”

She turned to him, not really focusing, mind still lost in her ruminations. “You asked the nature of Goku’s training. He’s been training with King Kai in a parallel dimension for the last three months. On that planet, gravity is ten times that of Earth’s. It was… difficult… to get him there. We had to use the dragon balls. Will likely need them to get him back…” 

He processed this. Rumors of the metaphysical properties of the fabled dragon balls had flown about as long as he could remember. He’d never paid the fantastic tales much heed. Until, that is, the dossier he’d been provided advised a set could be found on Earth.

Per the file, the Briefs woman had proposed purposing them to destroy the Icejin to the Saiyan king. However, that task had proven beyond the orbs’ capabilities. From her words, he extrapolated they’d instead used the orbs to facilitate Kakarot’s training. Which meant he was months behind his rival in the race to reach the level of the Legendary.

Shit.

“How does this thing work?” he asked, aware of the tinge of desperation in his voice, and working hard to stifle it.

The woman seemed to wake fully from her lethargy at the question, eyes brightening at the prospect of extoling her brilliance. “It will simulate up to one hundred times earth gravity, in small increments. Hypothetically, it can simulate higher. But, the hull plating has not been tested for that level of stress, so safeguards have been implemented to keep gravity levels at permissible parameters.”

She pointed at a large red button centralized on the control pad. “This turns it on.” Her hand swept over several other keys. “These regulate output.”

As he absorbed the information, his eyes caught her shift, felt the radiated intensity of her stare. “So, if we were to have a son, he’d be named Vegeta?” she asked, seemingly out of nowhere.

His eyes diverted to her, confused at the sudden change in topic. “We’re not procreating,” he stated with finality.

“But, if I got you hammered and had my way with you, our son would have to be named Vegeta?” she pried.

His brow hitched. “Had your way with me?” He fought the smirk pulling at his mouth. “And this delusion is predicated on getting me ‘hammered’? You do remember I specifically abstain from consuming mind altering substances, yes?”

“Humor me, asshole.”

He leaned against the control panel and huffed a breath to hide the growing amusement, arms coming to cross over his chest. “You are not Saiyan,” he deadpanned, then continued in a mock clinical tone, “However, even if you were, in our tradition, the mother has as much claim to naming rights over a child as the father. Though, female warriors are more often than not on deployments at time of birth, and rarely invested enough to care about the naming. It is my understanding that human females gestate their young until delivery, so I might guess you would likely _want_ to name this hypothetical child?”

He could no longer repress a smirk. This was just too fucking ridiculous.

“Why don’t Saiyan women give birth to their children? Who the hell does?” she gasped, incredulous, horrified.

A hand came to the bridge of his nose and a snort escaped him. “Viable embryos are placed in gestation pods—"

He stopped to spare a look at her. As he’d predicted, her face was twisted in awed disgust. “Never mind,” he finished, dismissively. “Not anything you should concern yourself with. This isn’t a real marriage, remember? No brats.”

He turned back to examine the panel, committing to memory the function of the dials she’d indicated. Eager to get started.

“Is it possible to have the schematics for this transferred to a neural interface data cube?”

Caught off guard by the question, imagination likely still reeling from thoughts of alien pod children, she sputtered, “Y-yes. Of course. I have quite a few cubes, and a few interfaces in our labs. I’m guessing you’d rather have something portable? It’d be a matter of downscaling the units. It should be simple enough for one of the techs to handle. Take, maybe a few days. I’d likely have it done faster, but, as I told you, I’m out for two weeks.”

He contemplated that for a moment, before nodding. “That’s acceptable, I suppose. Have the interface delivered to me at its earliest.”

She shot him a dubious look. “The schematics to this are incredibly complex. The neural file would be massive. Are you sure you—”

“I can handle it, I assure you.” He brought a finger to tap his temple. “Outlier, remember?”

She huffed. “There’s a marked difference between handling massive amounts of data fed to your neural cortex and possessing the ability to categorize, decipher and find practical applications of it, you realize.”

He didn’t bother responding, returning his attention to studying the panel.

After a few moments of him ignoring her, and her not taking the cue, he stated, flatly, “You’ll want to leave now.”

At her indignant huff, he spared her a final pointed look. “I’m guessing ten times Earth’s gravity would pull the muscle from your bones like overcooked poultry…”

A dark side-slash of a grin split his features. “We wouldn’t want that, would we? I may require your services in the future.”

With another scoff, she turned and made for the exit, muttering something—likely insulting— he phased out. He watched her stomp off, appreciating the trim legs protruding from under that canopy shirt, and remembering the brief glimpse he’d been afforded of the near nothing beneath.

His lower belly twinged, tongue swiping over his lower lip, recalling the taste of her, wondering if the flavor varied with the hours of her day the way her scent seemed to…

Quickly, he shook his head, dismissing the musing.

Thoughts of the tiresome woman were inconsequential to his goal.

He needed to focus.

With another deep breath to exorcise imagery of pale, creamy flesh from his mind, he slammed down on the big red button at the center of the console.

~~0~~

Routine was everything to a soldier.

Routine made the tedious days, weeks, months, of downtime between deployments bearable.

Routine bred the discipline that made it possible to accept the kind of bullshit orders that would normally incite a superior’s murder. And swift court-martial.

It gave purpose to the endless cycle of war: fight, bleed, heal, fight.

Without routine, a soldier forfeited sanity.

Within days, the prince had established a regimen, and his life assumed a predictable cycle.

He’d wake before dawn to groom and run through his katas in the undisturbed peace of the Capsule Corp. residential complex gardens.

At daybreak, Dr. Briefs’s mate would have a large breakfast served in the kitchen. Upon eating his fill, it was off to train in the gravity room.

At noon, he would break for another meal prepared by the woman’s mother. Then, back to the gravity room, until evening.

He’d purposely schedule daily debriefings from his forces in orbit at the time the Briefs congregated for their shared evening meal, but always found a more-than-generous portion set aside in the oven.

After another round of training in the gravity simulator, he usually made it to his chambers by eleven. He showered and went to bed.

The cycle repeated each day with little divergence, as per his predilection.

The only dalliance in the regime was the twelve hours weekly, set aside to allow healing of injuries, and promote the strain imposed on muscle fiber to weave itself into stronger sinew. Even through his eagerness to gain strength, his rational mind dictated that proper recuperation was vital in preventing a plateau in his progress. Usually, he used this time to center his mind and familiarize himself with the planet he’d been exiled to for the foreseeable future.

The rigorous schedule allowed for next to no interaction with his imposed mate.

The greatest benefit.

Routine was predictable, reliable.

Until it wasn’t.

His fist came down on the panel.

Too hard.

The alloy warped inwards, crushing the circuits beneath, and forcing a hissed expletive from the prince. The display that, under normal circumstances, projected gravity level output, still blinked the large, red ‘ERROR’ message.

Vegeta cursed again, definitively _not_ under his breath.

He’d requested the blueprints for his training facility for three reasons.

First, he had learned never to place blind trust in any foreign technology. Throughout Saiyan Empire history, there had been several occasions where annexed worlds attempted rebellion through sabotage of technologies his people had adopted. The rebellions had all quickly been subdued, but not without costly loss of Saiyan life. Knowing this, he made sure he possessed at minimum a rudimentary understanding of all technologies he appropriated.

Second reason was that ridiculous failsafe the woman had installed. Upon receiving the interface, that had been the first thing he’d managed to override.

Shackling him to one-hundred times earth gravity, his ass!

Third was exactly what was happening now.

If the machine was designed for use by a warrior of his caliber, it stood to reason it would not be fully tested until he began using it. Therefore, glitches were to be expected.

He was damned if he would have technicians interfere with his training for hours on end, working to figure that shit out.  Unlike most of his people, the prince was not entirely useless with technology. He was rougher on his pod than most, increasing the necessity of maintenance. Because of this, he’d managed to teach himself rudimentary upkeep. Utilizing this skill, as the weeks passed, he’d managed to puzzle out most of the minor issues the unit had presented with little impact to his training.

Nevertheless, this kind of systemic clusterfuck failure went well beyond his ability to repair.

He doubted fixing the mess was even within the technicians’ scope.

Which left him but one recourse: the device’s huge pain-in-the-ass inventor.

Fuck.

-0-

The receptionist just about flew from her chair when he stomped through the automatic doors of the research facility lobby.

Shirtless, sweating and slightly bloodied.

“Where is the Briefs woman?” he demanded without pomp.

The plump woman made a valiant effort at composing herself before mumbling, “A-at t-the g-gym, Highness. Sh-she spends her m-mornings working out—”

In a few strides, he’d closed the distance to the woman, looming over her, eyes narrowed dangerously. “You dare lie to me?” he snarled, working to repress his growing rage. Remembering his oath not to hurt any of this planet’s weaklings, he took a breath before attempting and failing a softer tone. “I’ve been utilizing the gymnasium since dawn. Do you think me so dull as to not notice another occupant?”

The plump clerk attempted to shrink into the padding of her chair, eyes flailing about frantically, hoping someone would come to her aide. She took a swallow that was painful to watch, before sputtering again. “I-I’m n-not lying to you, sir. Dr. Briefs exercises in the gym every morning. N-not yours, obviously… um… Prince Vegeta. Ours. Here. At the company. She should be there now…”

His scowl gained a tinge of curiosity.

“Show me.”

-0-

No one crossed their path as the prince followed the portly receptionist across the vast training complex.

The woman progressed at a pace that had her huffing and gasping in a way that made him almost consider recommending she make use of the varying machinery they passed. At this rate, she’d suffer a coronary before leading him to the intended destination.

He spared a look about as they progressed, noting a dozen or so others at the machines, engaging in what passed for exercise amongst these people.

He choked back a snort. For all their effort, he couldn’t sense above the barest of power levels from any of them. They hardly exerted enough chi to register as alive.

Pathetic.

“Here you are, Highness,” the woman huffed, as they arrived at the far wall of the complex, where stood four doors. She had led him to the second to last.

“Dr. Briefs’s spin class started twelve minutes ago. It should still be going—”

Ignoring her, Vegeta sidestepped and approached the door, knowing the automated sensor would allow him access.

The moment he set foot inside, he was assaulted.

Ear piercing noise pulsated through the darkened room, nearly rupturing his eardrums. His eyes immediately adjusted to the only source of light, a wall sized projection of a human male on a wheeled conveyance vehicle that went nowhere, regardless how hard the moron propelled it. The idiot spouted gibberish commands in a ludicrous exaggeration of an authoritative tone.

There were two dozen of the equally useless conveyances lined in two rows across the room, facing the projection.

He found the woman on one closest to the shouting imbecile, legs pumping in futile effort to propel the useless thing nowhere.

And, _he_ was the barbarian on this rock?

Were the cacophony of the room not pulsating his brain to cognitive impairment, he’d find it laughable. As it was, he focused on phasing out the sensorial onslaught, as best he could, surveying the space for a source.

Unfortunately, as was the case with the entire complex, the speakers emitting the foul sound were nowhere to be found.

Growing ever more irritated, the prince set eyes upon the lighting panel to the room. With no thought, as the screeching had well impaired the ability, he rammed a fist through the plastic, grabbing everything his hand grazed and pulling.

Immediately, the blistering sound and projection seized, red emergency lighting descending upon the space in its stead.

Electrical flow to the woman’s machine cut out so abruptly, that the momentum of her throttling legs propelled her forward, clear over the handles, to land hard on her ass before the device.

She shot up, cursing up a storm and rubbing at the injury, eyes darting around the room for the source of the power outage. In no time, they settled on him, standing by the entrance, a tangle of filaments, hoses, steel girder, and fuck-knew-what-else clutched in hand.

_“What the actual fuck, Vegeta?”_

With admirable speed, she’d shortened the distance to him, a fist flying at his temple. With less than a  thought, her wrist halted mid swing, grasped in his hand.

A surprisingly feral growl forced its way through her bared teeth. 

“That didn’t work out so well for you last time,” he quipped, unable to restrain a smirk at the savage quality to her rage. Dyed in the red lights, her eyes gleamed primeval purple. 

That tightening of his gut only the woman had ever roused came.

Fuck, she was magnificent.

She struggled against his hold, impudently twisting her wrist in a fashion that would surely have shattered it, had he not loosened and adjusted his grip to cushion her avian bones. Another hand came to his shoulder, nails gripping for leverage to pull away.

Were he another man, she likely would have broken skin.

Though fruitless, her thrasing brought her flush to him, face a breath away. She continued glaring death into him. Her breath seared his lips as she hissed, “Let. Me. Go.”

He let go.

The woman, not realizing how much of her weight he’d been supporting, careened chest-first into him, unwittingly knocking the air out of her lungs.

Mouth flush to his clavicle, she gasped a harsh, “Shit,” as she hyperventilated.

The sensation of her mouth on his bare skin was such that he immediately called up the memory of that once on shore leave, when he’d caught Raditz shaving Nappa’s ass on a wager (never did find out who’d won; certainly only losers came of it), in an attempt to staunch the downward rush of blood in his anatomy.

Again, wrong clothing choice for the biological responses this woman always managed to elicit.

She’d be the end of him.

After a moment that continued forever in his estimation, the woman composed herself, and pushed off from him with admirable violence.

“What do you think you’re doing, Vegeta?”

Ignoring the heat in her voice, his arms came up to cross high on his chest, knowing she’d track the movement. He needed her eyes trapped as high on his form as possible, while he raced to tamp down the visible evidence of how her actions affected him.

He shrouded his tenor in aloofness, and deadpanned, “Your expertise is required in repairing the gravity simulator.”

Abruptly, the woman brought a hand to rub across her face, deep into her hair. He saw her fingers curl as she pulled, eyes round with incredulity. “Are you fucking kidding me?”

Her inflection suggested that was not an actual question. He remained silent.

With a huff, her other palm lifted and dropped, her attention shifting to the ruined wall beside him. “And, you just ripped out the wall? What the hell is that? You don’t know if that’s a load-bearing wall. You don’t know if you could’ve brought this wing of the building down on me?”

“I’m confident, were the building to come down, I could easily shield you from damage,” he parried.

She shot him a nasty look. “Not the point, smart ass.” She took a harsh breath. “And, we’ve discussed this. You are not to call upon me—”

“I am not disrupting your work schedule,” he cut in. “I checked before coming here. Your receptionist confirmed you were not engaged in professional duties this morning. I’ve broken no rules.”

“Just because I’m not _working_ , doesn’t mean this isn’t _my time_ , dude! I _need_ this. To decompress, to stay healthy. Hell, to lose the few pounds I’ve gained from the stress of dealing with you Saiyan shitholes the last half a year.”

At her words, his eyes unwittingly traced down her body. She wore ankle-length compression pants and a compression bra that left the top rounds of her breasts peeking a good inch above the hemline.

He doubted she’d ever achieve the musculature a Saiyan female traditionally sported. Her composition was of different design. Soft. Curvy. Trim. Too trim, if his opinion were consulted. He’d seen the pitiful amounts the woman consumed. If anything, she was malnourished. He couldn’t fathom where these phantom few pounds she’d divined could possibly be found.

 “I. Need. This.” She shortened the distance to him once more, finger pointed insolently at his chin. “You are out of line.”

His demeanor shifted from detached to mocking. “You _need_ an asshole spouting abuse, while you propel a machine that goes nowhere, and self-induce premature hearing loss?”

“Hey! That was Imagine Dragons. That shit’s boss. Don’t insult the music. And I didn’t mean the trainer. I meant—” she extended an arm about the reddened room— “this. Saiyans are not the only beings who need exercise to stay fit. And we’re not all psychotically motivated to train like you. I need that ‘abuse spouting asshole’ for motivation.”

“If that is what passes for motivation for you, I will happily disparage everything and everyone you know, as you go about fixing my training room,” he offered, voice dripping sarcasm.

Instead of the expected, heated rebuttal, the woman shifted a hand on her hip, appraising him. Those big liquid eyes sparkled as her mind wove a new machination. Instinctively, his eyes narrowed.

“Fine. You do it.”

“Do what?”

“Run with me,” she said, casually. “If you think you’re a better motivator— run with me. You’ve established the stupidity of riding a bicycle that goes nowhere in a closed room. So… run a lap around the research complex with me, and I’ll fix your insipid machine.”

He frowned, a knowing glint in his onyx eyes. “You will fix my _insipid machine_ because it is what the treaty you signed with my king compels you to do.”

“The treaty compels me to fix it, but not within what time frame.” She grinned broadly, viciously. Triumphantly.

“It could take me a day, or it could take me a month. As long as it is fixed, I break no compact. Now, if you want it fixed immediately, you have to race me once around this facility. If you win, you have my undivided attention the rest of the day.”

He scoffed, but he couldn’t help the whetting of his curiosity, his pride. The woman was insane if she believed herself competition to the likes of him. Her limited visual spectrum could not even track his quicker movements.

He knew this. _She_ knew this.

So…

What was she up to?

His demeanor must have betrayed his interest, as her smile became beaming, and she dashed past him to the door that had opened automatically, upon the emergency system engaging.

“This will be epic, I just know it,” she shouted over her shoulder at him, eliciting an unexpected rush. It quickly stifled at her next words.

“Wait ‘til you see your handicap.”

-0-

Vegeta spared a wary glance at the cuffs affixed to his ankles and wrists, before scowling at the still-smiling woman before him.

She hadn’t stopped smiling since he’d somewhat agreed to this endeavor.

Not while she dragged him to her lab to ‘pick something up’. Not while she led him to the stone path surrounding the research building. Not while she clamped these, whatever the hell these were—he’d missed every other word of her mile-a-minute explanation—to his arms and legs.

She still smiled at him now. Hysterically.

Manic bitch.

“Okay,” she stated chirpily. “One lap around. That’s three-point-seven miles. Think you can handle it, Bad Man?”

He spared her a condescending scowl.

“Oh yeah!” she crooned in response, bending to pull a small remote pad from the box previously housing his… shackles?

“You’re at one-hundred-sixty-three times Earth gravity now, right?”

His eyes widened.

She huffed. “Please, guy. I monitor the output. I know you fucked around with the safeguard. Likely what caused whatever mess I have to fix now. I told you the system wasn’t tested above one-hundred.”

He clicked his tongue and glanced away to hide the esteem (embarrassment) that tightened his chest at the ingenuity exacted in that discovery.

“So,” she continued, heedless of his mock disinterest. “That would mean you weigh, what? Ten, twelve tons in there? Let’s assume twelve. That would be three tons an appendage, not counting the tail—” she mused, keying something into the pad.

Without warning, he was on his hands and knees, pinned by the cuffs at his wrists, calf muscles straining agonizingly from the increased drag at his ankles.

Shit!

“That’s right, asshole—” The woman kneeled before him, that vicious grin slashing her face. “The manacles use the same technology as your simulator to impose greater gravity.”

She shifted forward to bestow a quick press of her lips to the tip of his nose. She was still smiling impishly when she pulled back.

**_Vulgar woman!_ **

With a grunt, he raised his chi, and with some effort, rose to his feet. Once he’d found an energy output that would permit proper range of motion without completely depleting his stamina, he levelled out and glared at her, one brow hitched, chest heaving.

“What?” Her voice was lilting, all mock innocence. “You were begging for it, down on all fours like that.”

As soon as he destroyed the Icejin and rendered the treaty moot, he would relish watching the life spark fade from those big blue eyes, under the slowly tightening hold of his hand about her neck.

Heedless, her smile only grew at his dark stare. She kneeled into a launching stance. “Ready? One… Two… Three…”

And she was off down the path.

He watched her go for a good stretch, regulating his pulse to compensate the increased demand of flow to his muscles, before releasing a resigned sigh and following.

The weights, he found, were not entirely unbearable. They provided for a satisfying burn to his muscles he knew he’d never feel without them. Perhaps, he’d salvage a halfway decent warm up from this inane venture, after all.

It took no time to overtake the woman, even with her lead. The added pressure was challenging, but not terribly so.

The prince had just made the decision to gloat about the ease over his shoulder as he ran past, when the gravity at his extremities doubled, making him fumble, launching head-over-feet to the stones below.

He grunted a curse under his breath, as the woman sprinted past, running backwards. She lifted the control to the cuffs, that infuriating smile still plastered to her face. “I can increase it at a whim, Highness. Do try to keep up…”

With a snarl, he redoubled his chi and got up, exerting far more effort than before. At this rate, he was starting to wonder how long his reserve would hold. He’d worked his life to build up his fighting stamina far beyond that of his peers. If need be, he could fight well into long hours on a battlefield.

But, incrementally increasing chi during battle had nothing on _this_.

Still, he refused to lose to that harpy. With unrestrained determination, he started sprinting again. It was torture at first, but, he found that the mile an hour pace the woman kept was sustainable enough at the higher chi level.

That notion flew out the window the moment he tried to surpass her again two-thirds of the way around the path. That time, he crashed hard enough to crack the stones beneath.

The woman simply laughed raggedly—the run taking an obvious toll— and held the control up to him once more.

Bitch!

He surged his chi ever higher to gain the strength to keep going. Breaths hissing out of him, he watched that damned control in the woman’s grasp, an idea blooming.

It was risky. If it didn’t work, he’d drain all his reserve, and still lose this race.

But, if he was right, and it worked…

With a roar, he surged his chi to its peak, and vaulted for the end of the trail.

The inevitable came as he passed the woman, the increased drag on his limbs. With a huff, he ignored the pain and kept pumping his legs.

He felt it again, then again, and one more time, as he struggled for the finish line. And, he _was_ struggling. The muscles of his thighs and calves felt raw.

Until, they didn’t.

Suddenly, a few hundred yards from his destination, an electrical surge (nothing compared to the burn of his abused muscles) coursed through both arms and legs, proving his strategy successful.

Base-lining his chi, he slowed to an easy strut, breezing past the bench marking the predetermined finish point. Immediately after reaching that endgame, he collapsed on his back on the manicured lawn hedging the path.

It was several minutes of regulating breathing for maximized oxygenation and slowing the pulse, when the woman happened along, and with no grace, plummeted to the lawn at his side.

He lay there, watching the clouds and listening to the woman heave for as long as it took her to regulate her own breathing enough to speak.

“You overloaded the manacle’s safeguards,” she said, breathily. Not accusing. Simply a statement of fact.

He raised himself on an elbow, body angled toward her. “Your designs are predictable. You aim to cage advancement within boundaries you deem safe. Saiyans do not accept restrictions. We overcome them.”

Face still flush and chest heaving, she sent him a crossed look. “Were you not able to raise your chi to the level you can, those manacles would have your limbs off.”

He raised his free hand and flexed his fingers. “Still attached.”

“The safeguards are there for your protection, Vegeta,” she huffed. “If you want the threshold increased, ask. I’ll figure out something that will only _almost_ kill you. Otherwise,” she gestured at his manacles, “the gravity room will suffer the same fate as those. Only on an exponentially larger scale. I don’t know if even a Saiyan can survive that kind of explosion.”

“I shouldn’t need to ask. It is your duty to foresee to such needs, is it not?” he parried with a smug grin, looming threatening over her.

Her brow pinched in a brief frown, those very different emotions flashing in her eyes, before she stated, “I’m going to touch you now,” and proceeded to lunge onto her elbows, to place a quick kiss to his cheek.

He tisked and turned away to fight the heat rising to his neck, which he knew had nothing to do with the day’s warm clime. “That was not the accord. You are not supposed to state an intention to touch. The desire for contact is supposed to originate from me.”

“Yeah…” she said tiredly, a smile in her voice. “But, I think that should be fluid, since my communication skills far surpass yours.”

With another click of his tongue, he looked back at her, unimpressed. “What was that for, anyway?”

“To thank you. That was the best work out I’ve had in ages. The spin room is boring, but I don’t have a lot of options. The employees don’t like getting this sweaty and tired before starting work, so I have no one to run with. And, as I mentioned before, I need to be motivated, or I won’t get my round ass in shape.”

With a huff, she sat up, hugging her knees to her chest for a few seconds, before using her hands as leverage to stand. He watched her walk off a few steps, contemplating, before he spoke up.

“You would do this every morning?”

She halted and turned to send a questioning look at him. “Yeah… that’s the point, right? Consistency. If I do it once in a blue moon, I’ll never get results.”

With far less effort, he shot to his feet, coming to stand before her, dark eyes still calculating. “I require weekly maintenance of the gravity room, not just this one repair. Your technicians are… inelegant. They take forever to find the source of a malfunction and even longer to resolve it.”

He crossed his wrists behind him, voice growing imperious. “If you agree to personally attend to weekly updates and maintenance of the gravity room, I will deign to run one lap around this facility with you every day.”

Unexpectedly, the woman squealed and lunged for him, arms wrapping around his neck. Before he could fully register the bizarre gesture, she’d released him and stood before him, bouncing on the balls of her feet.

“Yes,” she squealed. Too loud. Completely heedless of the abuse his sensitive eardrums had borne only hours earlier.

“I will do that. Thank you, Vegeta. Let me get my toolbox and I’ll meet you at the gravity room in twenty?”

Without preamble or response, she turned on a heel and ran for the entrance of the research building.

He waited until she was well out of site before allowing himself the grin he’d been suppressing. Her exuberance was explosive, like a little child’s. Inexplicably, it made his chest swell.

The inane sentimentality was abolished as quickly as it had come, and the prince schooled his features into the practiced nonchalance appropriate to his station.

After all, the offer had not been made for the woman’s benefit. Her needs mattered naught.

If his training was to progress to the next plane, he would need to intensify his warm-up. Simple katas would no longer suffice. And the idea of finding a proper sparring partner on this mudball was laughable. Assuming the manacles could be retrofitted to produce gravity levels on par with his growing power levels, a daily run would serve as acceptable substitution.

It was a practical decision.

Nothing more.

After all, routine was everything to a soldier.

Any good soldier _should_ be expected to recognize the benefit of tweaking routine to maximize efficiency.

What harm could come of adding a few moments of the woman’s presence?

Ultimately, it was all part of the routine.

* * *

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the longest chapter to date. Don't expect another like this. It was terrible to edit. I even considered splitting it. But, that would entail adding another chapter and I want to keep to the ten I established at the start.
> 
> As always, posting without full editing. More edits will come the next few days.
> 
> If you like what I got so far, feel free to hit that comment button. Or, if you just want to shout out. I'm a talker.
> 
> :O)


	6. Diplomacy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bulma throws a gala for Earth’s military. Vegeta is bribed into attending.

* * *

Vegeta was not sure how it had come about— the bizarre kinship.

He’d certainly never gone out of his way to seek out the creature’s companionship. It was just happenstance, he supposed, that Dr. Briefs’s animal consistently happened upon him on the off days he chose to spend his weekly leisure hours in the residential complex’s expansive family room, indulging his curiosity of Earthen media.

As was the case now.

The prince lay sprawled across the large, over-plush couch, head propped on a fist, clad in comfortable sweat pants and wife beater, remote control in hand. His tail thrashed and twisted about, as he feigned interest in the talking heads on the wall-sized screen. Really, he’d paid little mind to whatever inanity his aimless channel surfing had yielded.

Live action entertainment had always been more his style, and his companion was not disappointing.

He stifled a chortle when Scratch leapt a good four feet in the air, paws stretched to their limit, and nearly achieved the elusive connection with the appendage he’d been attempting the last quarter hour. Spritely little thing was determined.

Vegeta often found himself condescending to play this game. He liked studying the motions of the animal. The agility. The quickness.

He considered it a study in movement, appropriating the motions to his fighting style.

Although, his own speed and reflexes far surpassed that of the feline (hence why, after months trying, the thing had yet to contact his tail), and Saiyan (human) physiology couldn’t accommodate as vast a range of motion, he’d found incorporating certain movements to his katas, greatly improved flexibility and dexterity.

In recompense, the animal deserved a few moments of attention, he’d deemed.

Another laugh smothered into the back of a fist, as he watched the cat careen face first into the couch, before springing right up to, once more, leap for the prince’s tail.

He’d found the creature’s company far more agreeable to that of humans. This piqued the prince’s curiosity, prompting him to research the species.

Scratch, he’d learned, was the result of thousands of years of human genetically selective breeding, coupled with systematic domestication, geared at reducing a fierce natural predator into the facile thing losing its tiny mind in a never-ending quest to catch the prince’s tail.

Humans, it appeared, had a penchant for neutering the natural predatory instinct of anything stronger and deadlier than they.

Vegeta scowled.

_He needed off this fucking rock!_

“As I’ve explained before many times, Admiral, that will not be necessary…” The woman’s voice pierced the relative calm he’d been enjoying. She traipsed into the room with a cellular phone held to her ear.

Vegeta tensed.

Months of cohabitation had taught him to practice caution when in close quarters to her. She possessed a bizarre talent for finding her way under his skin.

With lightning speed, his tail snapped back to coil about his waist, as he usually wore it, instantly ending the game with Scratch, who mewed in protest. He dialed up the volume on the television, hoping she’d take a hint and leave him the hell be.

No such luck.

Instead of leaving, as would a considerate (sane) individual, the woman shot him an exasperated glare, gesturing the phone—mouthpiece covered—toward him.

He responded with an equally exasperated sneer and jerky one-shoulder shrug.

It wasn’t _he_ encroaching on _her_ down time.

With a resigned sigh, the woman trotted over to the set and motioned a hand over an edge, manually turning the thing off.

“No, Admiral. I assure you, Capsule Corp. is willing to be as transparent as possible,” she huffed into the phone, approaching him on the couch for some godforsaken reason.

“I promise you that everything will be ironed out at next week’s conclave.” She paused to hear whatever the idiot on the other end spewed, dramatically rolling her eyes before they set in a look crossed between boredom, and irritation.

 “Just… u-huh… well… yes… I look forward to seeing you and your lovely wife in a week. Thank you—,” the woman tried to conclude, voice edging with the annoyance she worked to repress. Whoever the asshole on the other end was, he didn’t know how to take a hint any better than she.

“Yes. I’m sure. We will talk again very soon. Yes-thanks-good-day—” the woman blurted quickly, fingering the button to end the call with such force, he was shocked the screen didn’t crack.

“Shit!” she huffed, plopping down on the couch, personal space defyingly near. He found it necessary to sit up to avoid his forearm contacting her hip.

“Military people are all shitheads,” she exhaled, reclining heavily on the cushioned back rest. As if any context had been provided for him to know what she was griping about.

He made to get up, not of a mood to deal with the woman’s drama.

He froze when her hand alighted on his quadricep, forcing his eyes to her, half wary, half curious.

“We need to talk,” she said flatly.

“I _need_ do nothing but stay Saiyan and die, Woman.”

Working to ignore the heat of her touch, he rose to his feet. Instantly, she mirrored the shift in position.

“Please, Vegeta,” she pleaded, fingers now curling about his inner elbow. She needed to stop fucking touching him.

“I need your help. I’ll make it worth your while…”

In blatant disparagement of every inner siren warning to get the hell away, the woman’s offer whet the prince’s interest. He shifted to face her, arms crossing high on his chest.

She took the motion as cue to pitch her proposal. “It’s the Earth Military… well…they are threatening action against Capsule Corp.”

At his narrowed eyes, the woman quickly elaborated, “It’s understandable. They’re nervous. The king didn’t bring any government officials in on the treaty with Earth. All this planet’s king knows is the purposely limited intelligence I’ve provided and… well… it’s just not enough anymore.”

“How is this any of my concern?”

“You’re the reason he’s nervous,” the woman explained. “You and your people. The king’s arrival last year went largely unnoticed. It was a single, small vessel. Before that, Bardock and his squad, in their pods, didn’t raise hackles, either. Most people just saw what could pass for meteors shoot across the sky. But, it’s impossible to ignore the huge spacecraft that’s maintained parallel orbit to our planet for months. Earth has satellites. They know you’re up there. They see your prolonged stay as a threat.”

“So, the assistance you require… is in disposing of these people?”

“God, no! I told you. No killing Terrans, guy.”

He slumped, giving her a scowl brimming with tedium.

“I’m hosting a summit next weakened. I will invite all Earth’s Brass and explain in clearer detail the nature of my company’s compact with your king . The summit will culminate with a gala.”

The woman bit her bottom lip, a habit he’d learned was common when her mind was raging… or she was nervous. “I need you to serve as my escort to the gala… so I can announce you as my husband and assuage the military’s fears—”

“No.”

“Please, Vegeta. I need you to do this for me. No one outside Capsule Corp. has seen any of your people. Seeing you, seeing how… _human_ you are. It will reaffirm my assurances that you pose no threat. The Earth king will get off my back, and I won’t have to listen to jets perform tactical flyovers at all hours of the day and night.”

The military craft had not passed the prince’s notice. There were hundreds on standby at the edge of the city limits, along with many armored land vehicles. He hadn’t bothered counting. Any seasoned soldier could recognize offensive maneuvers. The woman was not exaggerating.

His scowl deepened, calculating.

“The progression of my training is unsatisfactory,” he stated in an authoritative if bargaining tone. “I require a higher level of difficulty. If you conceded to the manufacture of training droids with the capacity for unhindered flight at the gravity levels I require, _and_ outfit them with weapons capable of inflicting true damage to my body…I will consider your proposal.”

The smile that split the woman’s face was so wide, he was sure it pained her.

Shit. He was so fucked.

~~0~~

This _was not_ Vegeta’s scene.

Earthlings’ grasp of basic etiquette was laughable.

He was conspicuous, he knew, in the gold trimmed black and crimson formal Saiyan officer’s uniform he’d sent for from Sadala months before. But, did every bipedal thing with a heartbeat in the room _have_ to gawk at him?

It’d taken all of ten minutes to grow weary of the insolence. Accordingly, after suffering through a heralded entrance into the grand hall with the woman’s hand nestled in the crook of his arm, and the requisite speech where she’d announced him as her spouse, he’d quickly made himself scarce. Shouldering past moron after moron, who’d violated his personal space, chomping at the bit for a chance to bandy words with the novelty of the hour, he’d found the most secluded, poorly lit nook in the room and imbedded himself. Arms locked behind him, unyielding as titanium.

Projecting an aura of don’t-fuck-with-me so caustic, only someone truly devoid of sanity would come within ten yards of it.

So, of course, within the time it took to exchange the mandatory pleasantries with the higher-ranking guests, the woman found her way to his side.

Because, obviously, the death-promising sneer broadcasted a desire for company.

“You’ve lasted longer than I’d expected,” she stage-whispered into the delicate goblet she brought to her lips, not turning her attention from the people milling about. He could hear the smile in her voice.

He gave a derisive snort, and, knowing she would catch it out the corner of her eye, gestured his head in the general direction of a gaggle of gossiping women, who occasionally spared them a glance and giggled.

“That Colonel What’s-His-Name’s daughter in red made an impressively explicit and detailed proposition as I passed. He’d be served to find her a proper mate before she takes to humping the furniture.”

Abruptly, a string of red launched from the woman’s mouth and she doubled over, clutching her middle, laughing so ponderously, half the room turned to stare. She waved a hand, palm up, eyes streaming tears, as she gasped to control the fit, barely managing a dismissive— “I’m fine. It’s fine. Ignore me.” –before continuing her chortling.

After several more seconds. And appropriating a monogrammed cloth cocktail napkin to wipe the tears from her eyes, she was finally composed enough to turn to him, still repressing humor. “That’s decidedly _not_ the Colonel’s daughter, Vegeta.”

At his questioning frown, she gestured a hand expansively. “All these pencil dicks bring the trophy wives to these things.” She gestured her half-full glass at the aforementioned woman. “She’s flavor of the month four or five. I’ve lost count. His oldest child is two decades her senior, if memory serves.”

Vegeta’s nose crinkled, eyes tracing from the obscene woman to her supposed mate at the far corner of the room. At present, the man stood in a clique of other uniformed officers, all eyeing the Briefs woman with disdain at her outburst moments before.

His blood began to boil. The words rumbled from deep in his throat, a guttural snarl. “He’s vile.”

“She’s no price, herself. Zeroing in on the one man who’d just minutes ago been announced as another woman’s husband. Within yards of her own husband.” She snorted. “They’re made for each other. Did she propose something involving small furred animals? There’s a rumor going around…”

Open disgust twisted the prince’s features, prompting a resigned smile from her. “It’s par for the course for men in positions of power like these. Mary a great woman. Have her bear and raise good kids. Then, trade her in for a newer model, when mid-life crisis hits with the realization your micro endowment only comes to half-mast on dick pills. And, surely, that problem would be resolved by screwing someone half your age. Because nothing screams ‘I’m hung like a horse’ like having a child bride at your arm.”

Perfect. As if Vegeta needed another reason to deplore the leeches in the room.

“They’re swine,” he mumbled, voice thick with vitriol.

With another derisive snort and generous gulp of wine, she stated, “Can’t argue there, buddy. It’s one of many reasons service men have never caught my fancy.” She paused to give him a conspicuous once-over, before adding with a salacious grin, “Present company excluded, of course. Even if I was given very little say in the matter, it’s nice to know you clean up this nice.”

At her quasi-veiled attempt at flattery, he was momentarily sidetracked from wording his next point, eyes swooping down to appraise her, not for the first time that evening.

Earlier, to abate the heat rush to his face and neck when she’d rushed around a corner to meet him for their entrance, it had been necessary to feign interest in an ancient Earth tapestry hung just by the doors to the grand stairs leading down to the ballroom. She’d dashed to the floor-to-ceiling gilded mirror opposite the entry to finish hooking dangling jeweled earrings, sputtering some breathy apologies for being several minutes late, and consequently providing an exhaustive exhibition of her attire.

He’d tried not to look, but, fuck, he was a man. And that flash of creamy skin as she’d passed within a foot of where he stood, had blared in his periphery, forcing his gaze to track it.

**_Damn her!_ **

_Did she even realize?_

From the front, the dress was illusorily unassuming. Shimmering fabric of a very pale— not quite white—hue, draped across her clavicle, shoulder to shoulder, held by golden clasps that left both arms exposed. From the neck-high hemline, the fabric cascaded, deceptively loose, over her form, to pool at her feet. The outfit’s allure was not of design, however, but of motion. It outlined and conformed to every curve in perfect symmetry to the sway of each step, each graceful shift of form.

She was a force of nature. A living waterfall.

But, the true devastation came when the prince diverted attention from the splendor reflected in the looking glass to her back.

The dress shrouded _nothing_ of her back.

From behind, those imposing golden broaches at her shoulders secured nothing but the thinnest of chains, spanning her trapezium. The rest was bare, down to less than half a handful of inches above where, if his knowledge of Saiyan (human) anatomy served, the divide of her glutes began. The dimples flanking her tailbone (where a Saiyan would sport the start of a tail) were evident. The subtle rise of flesh there sported a golden applique in the shape of a small bird’s wishbone. An exact replica to the device he’d had implanted his first day on this planet, to prevent his oozaru transformation.

The sight had his stomach tightening like a starved, wild… thing. He found it impossible to look away.

Thankfully, it had taken only a minute for the woman to complete the task of attaching the jewels, and she’d turned briskly to come to his side— too briskly to notice where his eyes had lingered. Oblivious, she’d smiled broadly and taken a huge gulp of air before hooking her arm in his and exhaling a, “Here we go,” before leading them forth into the hall.

The debacle that followed had effectively forced the magnificent image from the prince’s mind, until that moment, where he’d lapsed their conversation to appraise the woman at his side.

Worrying he’d taken long enough a pause in their discourse to capture notice, he mentally shook his head and said, “How does your society condone such disgraceful behavior?”

She interrupted her amused people watching to focus slightly confused eyes on him. “What? You mean the divorcing a person and marrying someone else? It’s not always this—” she gestured a hand about the room— “mockery. Some people have legitimate reasons to change partners.”

Vegeta released a disdainful scoff. “Only this planet’s cretins would deign the disparaging of a willfully claimed mate as _legitimate_.”

Her eyes went from amused to wonderment, in that way he’d learned meant the cogs in her brain were turning full tilt. “Saiyans marry for life,” she said. Not a question. A statement of fact—of realization.

His tone remained clinical, matter-of-fact. “In Saiyan tradition, anyone who breaks a marriage bond is shunned, expunged of rank and cast. Shamed. No Saiyan would condone such disrespect.”

He had her full attention now. She’d shifted completely toward him, head tilted in the now-familiar fashion, lips thinned in concentration. “But,” she began, then paused, visibly struggling to find the right wording to encompass the scope of what she wanted to know. “You don’t choose your own spouses in your culture. You didn’t choose _me_. Certainly, concessions must be made—”

“Concessions are not necessary!” he cutoff, abruptly, voice carrying more vehemence than he’d intended. He, too, shifted fully, shrouding their alcove in the illusion of privacy. He softened his tone. “My people have entirely free will. They need not abide to tradition. The larger majority does because it has been time-proven to work best for us as a society. We are warriors. We don’t have the time or inclination to engage in the elaborate courting rituals rote to other cultures.

“Matchmakers are born to their calling and have dedicated most of their lives to it. The vetting that goes into pairing mates is mind-boggling. Everything from aesthetics, to physiological constituency, to body chemistry analytics, to intellect, to psychological profile, to emotional profile, to battle ability—even to something as innocuous as hygiene proclivity— is studied from the moment every child enters Trials, in the endeavor to find the most compatible match. You can see how it is deeply offensive to a tradition at the core of our civilization to, after all that effort exacted on an individual’s behalf, they accept their mate, only to disparage them later. A Saiyan who does such a thing is lower than an insect and unworthy of our bloodline.”

The woman nodded, eyes still keen, if slightly narrowed. “So, it does come down to choice. If I’m understanding you, your people have a choice not to mate with the person chosen for you by the Matchmakers. But, once the choice is made, it’s irrefutable until death?”

He gave a sharp nod, demeanor growing ever softer. His tone held the same tacit quality. This was the most comfortable he’d felt all day. Indulging the woman’s thirst for knowledge of his culture, he’d come to find, was oddly cathartic. “We also have a choice to forego the Matchmakers altogether. Some choose never to mate. Others, break with tradition and make their mate choice on their own. As was the case with my brother. At seventeen, he chose to marry a childhood friend—the daughter of a minor palace guard—whom he’d played with as a child and developed an attachment uncharacteristic to Saiyans towards. It was foolhardy. The choice should never be made at so young an age and it definitively should never revolve around fickle sentimentality.”

Her brows hitched, and she said in a bland tone, “A bit cold, don’t you think?”

Vegeta shrugged. “It’s the Saiyan way. From studying your psychological profile and the behavior of your species in general, I’ve gathered both our peoples register the same… scope… of emotions. However, there exists a stark contrast between our species in both how potently those emotions affect us, and their behavioral influence. The emotions humans feel most keenly are dulled to Saiyans, and vice versa. And you ascribe a sentimentality to emotion we do not.

“Depending on the stages of your lives, the basest human passions are fueled by familial attachment, lust, and, most consistently—love. While we are capable of feeling these, they do not drive us. Saiyan passions are fueled by honor, ambition, drive to be strongest—rage. Millenia of species development have shown us that love is a capricious thing. It can lead one astray. Warriors cannot be driven by such inconsistency, soldiers cannot. Likely, this is why selective breeding has systematically numbed such sentimentalities in our nature.”

He let out a long breath, reclining against the wall at his back, mind burrowing into nooks he’d seldom allow it access. “Tarble’s—,” he began, introspectively, “—idiosyncratic sentimentalism may well have doomed him. No Saiyan can refute a mate, even those who choose their own. His palate for such things may well change as he ages. He will be tempted over the years, to betray his bond, inviting shame to himself, his mate and the Royal bloodline. This is why tradition stipulates a warrior put in two decades of military service before meeting with a Matchmaker. Thirty plus years of life experience better prepares us to take on that life-long commitment.”

Something…unreadable flashed in the depths of the woman’s eyes and she swallowed before speaking in a tentative tone. “So, where does that leave us? We’re married. The king and a justice of Earth’s peace presided the union. It’s legitimate. Where does that put you when you defeat the Icejin and—”

“You and I are not bound by Saiyan tradition. Our union is a legal compact,” he quickly replied, no inflection in his tenor, simple clinical dictation. “As is true of all compacts, it is predicated on duties and benefits. As long as the duties dictated in said compact are met, it can be dissolved. There is nothing more to it. As no choice was made in the matter, the marriage will be annulled without repercussion.”

“And, you can be off to mate the Saiyan girl who’s been vetted to become the next Royal Consort since the age of, what? Seven? And, I can go on living my merry, glamorous life,” the woman quipped, an odd note to her voice and—for the first time since he’d known her—a smile that sparked absolute nothing in her eyes.

Before he could question the queer shift in demeanor, someone—likely lulled into a sense of entitlement by the prince’s focus shift from glaring murder to conversing with the Briefs woman—breeched their bubble of solitude with an obnoxious clearing of a throat.

Vegeta turned to find a tall, portly Admiral whose name he’d not bothered remembering, standing far too close for propriety, eying him with a mocking sort of curiosity.

“My boy,” the man started, instantly garnering a scowl and ‘shithead’ label from the prince. That was appropriate moniker, he decided. Admiral Shithead.

“The other officers and I were wondering,” Admiral Shithead began, with a supercilious inflection that had the prince tightening his fists behind him to keep from throttling the asshole.

“If it’s not too much of an imposition of course… Would you provide us with a demonstration of your abilities? After all, if it is true that the protection of our entire planet from this supposed Icejin threat has been entrusted to one man. One _alien_ man, mind you— I believe it only logical to see just _how_ this singular individual would accomplish so monumental an undertaking,” the aged officer concluded with a condescending smile that begged the prince drive a fist through his teeth and out the other side of his skull.

“With all due respect, Admiral, I don’t think that’s necess—” the woman began to protest, but choked off when, abruptly, Vegeta stepped forward, equally insolently breeching the insipid asshole’s personal space to stare dead in his milky eyes. Even with how their comparative statures forced a tilt of the prince’s head, the officer visibly wilted, taking a deep swallow, gaze narrowed and shifty.

All bluster. No cojones.

The prince allowed himself a slash of a smirk.

“What did you have in mind?”

~~0~~

“You are certain all vehicles have been evacuated?” Vegeta shouted down, surveying the staging area in the dessert outskirts of the city, where myriad units of materiel rested at the ready, in offensive formation.

“Y-yes—” the Admiral sputtered back, voice still awed at the spectacle of the man floating several dozen feet above the couple hundred ball guests congregated on the deck of the hovercraft they’d appropriated to bring them to this place for their demonstration. “The forces have retreated two miles,” the officer added, voice still trembling.

The prince shifted to spare an unimpressed glare at the group below him, eyes zeroing in on the Admiral. “That’s not sufficient. Have them retreat another fifteen miles. You have ten minutes. If they are still mobilizing when it begins, I will not be held responsible for collateral casualties.”

The prince waited and watched the Brass below scurry about, relaying orders to their men. He was familiar with Terran military infantry vehicles. They were Capsule Corp. brand. He was certain their speed was sufficient to have the humans out of the blast radius in the time he’d allotted. Still, Providence knew, watching them fret and bustle about like roaches to meet his demands amused him greatly.

After what he considered appropriate delay, he called down again. “Are all artillery set to deploy remotely, Admiral?”

Upon receiving the shaky confirmation, he called back a brisk, “Commence!” and jetted forth.

As scripted, once he was two-hundred yards from the spectators and, just high enough to stay within the restrictive visible scope of the human audience, thousands of projectile streams emerged from the military vehicles, arching toward his trajectory.

He waited a few breaths, making sure all ammunition was exhausted.

Then, he unclasped his hands from behind, bringing them forth, palms up, wrists touching, and began centering chi. Within a heartbeat, the energy encompassed both hands, tinging them in a crackling red aura.

Another deep intake of air, and he shifted into striking stance: knees bent, right leg forward, left leg anchoring behind, arms bending to bring the chi close to his right, nearly grazing his ribs. On the exhale, both arms shot out, releasing the pent energy.

With a mental command, the chi field gained exponential speed and size, easily encompassing every airborne projectile, detonating them in a massive aerial explosion.

Not waiting for the debris-riddled dust to clear, the prince gave a barely perceptible shift of his wrists. Correspondingly, the energy sphere plummeted to encompass the entire field of military vehicles and weaponry. It all disintegrated in a flash of blinding light, the only evidence of its previous existence the massive mushroom cloud blossoming and spreading into the ether.

With a last deep breath, Vegeta turned, and with movement no human could track, flew back to descend just before the pompous Admiral.

At his unpremeditated arrival, the man squealed like the fattened swine he was, and flailed arms about, as he plummeted unceremoniously, landing hard on his ass.

“Is this sufficient to quell your concerns?” Vegeta asked, voice dripping the prideful imperiousness bred of his rank, strength, and lineage.

“Th-that w-was—” the officer sputtered, pitifully attempting to backwards crabwalk away from the prince. “Th-that was the entire eastern quadrant army! You’ve decimated a tenth of Earthen defense!” he wined, pathetically, voice a shriek of mixed awe and horror.

Managing a modicum of restraint over his obvious fear, the red-faced Admiral turned incensed eyes on the Briefs woman, who stood casually a few feet to his left, futilely smothering a huge grin behind the wine glass she held to her lips. Vegeta felt his chest swell at the blatant schadenfreude.

She was a devious, conniving creature.

Magnificent.

Pointing a shaking finger at the woman, Admiral Shithead loudly growled an arraignment. _“What kind of monster have you brought to this planet?”_

Whatever the parry, Vegeta didn’t hear it, instantly taking to the sky with no particular destination, charging the woman with handling of the gaggle of buffoons.

There were still roughly five hours left to his day off.

He’d be damned if another minute was sacrificed to this shit.

~~0~~

It was near midnight when he’d ventured back to the residential compound, bypassing his quarters’ private balcony—a favored entry point when returning from excursions of the planet—to enter through the kitchen.

Thanks to that mockery of a ball, he’d barely had lunch, and had well missed dinner. He was starving. He’d grab the meal he knew awaited him in the oven and head up for a shower and rest.

He found his plans sidelined when, upon entering the kitchen, which triggered the automatic lights, he found the woman, still decked in the day’s finery, reclining casually at a stool, heeled feet propped on the counter, a bottle of that ridiculously sweet and—according to her bragging—obscenely extravagant wine in hand.

She took a long swig, and allowed her eyes to narrow—whether it be due to the sudden brightness of the room or anger, he could not decipher— before releasing a long sigh. A languid smile followed. “You’re a dick for leaving me to deal with those assholes, you know. They’re leaving us alone. Not because they believe me, mind you. They’re just scared shitless you’ll murder them all in their sleep. Good job.”

Vegeta scowled. She was slurring her words. Not enough to impair his comprehension of her speech, but enough to broadcast the depth of her inebriation.

Ignoring her statement, —he couldn’t parse whether it was meant to be complimentary or accusatory— he chose to proceed with caution. Tentatively, without a word, he came around the counter and began retrieving his meal from the oven, arranging the various dishes before him and pulling cutlery from a drawer.

Keeping his eyes from the woman, whose gaze heated his periphery, he removed his gloves and proceeded to eat.

He heard the woman breathe a sigh and noticed her shift, coming to her feet. She rounded to where he stood with admirable grace on those towering shoes, considering her state. She came so close, her hip grazed his, as she bent over the counter, forearms propping her, with the bottle still in hand, looming over the prep sink.

From this vantage, it was impossible not to look at her.

She stared at him.

And smiled.

That huge smile that lit her glassy blue eyes like marbles.

He exerted some effort in ignoring both it, and the magnificent view of her nude back the relaxed position offered. That ingot applique at the base of her spine glinted in the recessed lighting.

Shit.

“You never told what you thought of this gown,” she purred suggestively, slowly lifting from the counter, leaving the bottle forgotten in the small sink.

She shifted even closer, pressing her front against his arm, making it impossible to ignore the heat seeping through the thin fabric of the dress. Impossible to ignore the realization that instantly branded his brain: he could _feel_ everything she wore beneath that fucking dress, and she was fucking wearing _nothing_.

“Do you like my dress, Highness?” she hissed into the shell of his ear, forcing an unwitting shudder.

Voraciously tapping the livelong dug well of discipline, he forced his body still, face stony, as he reached for a bottle of water, and turned his face. Both to take a sip and to gain some small measure of reprieve for the delicious heat of the woman’s breaths on his neck. After a few moments of drinking and bolstering his defenses against the onslaught, he casually turned back, not intending to meet her eyes and aloofly remarked, “It is acceptable, I supp—”

And her mouth was on his. Not like that previous (only) time, where she’d surprised him during the tour of his training facility the first day he'd cohabitated with her.

This was different.

Slow. Coaxing. Immobilizing.

Her lips were tentative at first, soft grazes of flesh on flesh. Then daring. Nips at his bottom lip, teasing, brazen. Daring him to reciprocate.

Most different of all: his complicity.

Opening his mouth, he allowed entry to her probing tongue, in turn indulging his own building desire to sample her. And fuck, she tasted fantastic. Like that saccharine wine she favored, yes, but also tangy and spicy. A varietal uniquely hers.

A guttural sound came from the depths of his throat as he shifted, providing them both better leverage to deepen the kiss, which served to ignite other senses.

At once, he was hyperaware of the singe of her flesh on his. Her scent. It held the familiar hints of spice and floral musk, but also carried a saturation of that tang he’d noted a couple of times before. Only, now, something basic and primal within qualified it.

_Arousal._

The realization of her state fueled his own, and he could no longer keep from touching her. One hand came to bury in the upsweep of curls at the nape of her neck while the other traced languid movements across her back.

Fuck, her skin was as soft as he’d imagined. Softer.

Every inch of tactile contact had synapses flashing, wildly. It saturated. Making him drunk off it. Off her.

It was this sobering passing notion that engaged his rational mind, and, with a gasp, he pulled back.

She pouted in response, the expression sending another sorely unhelpful surge of blood to his already engorged manhood.

“What?”

He took a few exaggerated breaths, nostrils heaving before he managed a snarled, “You’re drunk.”

For an unfathomable reason, this caused the woman to explode into giggles, and she slumped heavily, into his shoulder, breathing laughter into his neck that threatened once more the limits of his self-control.

Closing his eyes, he centered his thoughts, steadying his breathing, using his lifetime of learned aplomb to ignore the woman snuggled into him. After several moments, when he had mostly gained control of his anatomical responses, he opened his eyes, shifting them to the woman.

They widened. Her head still rested on his shoulder, eyes closed. Breaths even.

She’d fucking fallen asleep.

She’d fucking fallen asleep _standing up_ …propped on _him_.

With a resigned sigh, and quick rub at the bridge of his nose, he hooked an arm around the woman, easily lifting her over a shoulder. She weighed nothing.

With a longing look at the meal still mostly uneaten and set before him on the counter, he moved off toward the staircase to the residential suites wing.

For a moment, his step faltered. He humored dropping her in the hallway, and returning to his meal.

Nevertheless, he reconsidered. The hangover that awaited her in the morning was fitting enough punishment for her reckless overindulgence. And, grudgingly, he felt he owed her…

…for the kiss.

Even if his experience with Radditz and Nappa’s binges had taught him someone this black out incapacitated on spirits likely would not recall their actions, the prince would.

The taste of her still lingered on his lips, coated his tongue. The feel of her skin still seared his calloused hands.

Because of her, that night he’d experienced sensations he’d never previously known.

Because he’d actively avoided them, yes. But still.

At minimum, getting her onto her bed was owed.

Then, it was off to finish his meal.

Followed by the most artic shower Capsule Corp.’s impressive plumbing system could offer.

And, resolutely, his mind would forever be banned from foraging back to recollections of this night.

* * *

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fan Art for this Chapter by the incomparable rutbisbe:  
> [](http://tinypic.com?ref=e19gld)
> 
> Ugh! Another long one. I swear, if the next one's this long, I'm not editing it. Y'all are getting a choppy mess of a chapter. especially with how difficult the next one will be to write. *wink*  
> Only pre-read, not edited. Further editing will come over the next few days.
> 
> As always, if you like it, put a kudos on it. Or, a comment if you're feeling generous. You know the way to a girl's heart.
> 
> :O)


	7. Liaisons

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Vegeta takes training too far and explodes the gravity room. After overseeing the recovery, Bulma comes to a decision.
> 
> And changes the course of both their lives.

* * *

Darkness.

Absolute.

Not the absence of light.

Deeper.

Absence of existence.

Complete nothingness.

No time.

No awareness of singularity in the endless expanse of the cosmos.

Then, —after a second or an epoch—the darkness changes.

Takes on…tangibility.

It shifts, warps to an edge.

That edge sharpens into indescribable agony.

Then, confusion at the agony. A fundamental lack of comprehension. The _what_ registering before the _why_ and the _how_.

 _Those_ aren’t even clear.

Because whatever this dimension: pain dominates.

Too much for something as complex as thought.

But, the darkness keeps dissipating, and the clarity brings better understanding. The pain transmogrifies from all-encompassing, to defined.

It was his body. He had a body. Had he always possessed a body? Had there ever been anything other than pain?

The fugue fades further, dragging realization with it. O _f course he’s always had a body_.

That notion was idiotic.

That’s when it becomes evident that notions are possible.

Hm.

He really wished they were not. Thinking hurt like hell. With thought, came the onslaught of sensorial stimuli, and he willed that away, as well.

Sound was the screeching banshee of stereocilia. And, shit, if that wasn’t annoying.

A filmy, pungent yellow lingered on his tongue. Nauseating. Nothing tasted quite so foul as yellow.

But, at least yellow tasted half as repulsive as light smelled. That reek of luminescence assaulted his nose.

Gradually, the skull pulsing whine lessened, allowing language to filter through —slow, muffled, fighting through the dark murk of his nascent cognition.

“…now…get…don’t…killed…idiot…”

The voice sounded familiar, but the concept of ‘familiar’ faded as soon as it had formulated.

This voice was not soothing. It grated, compounding to the confusion. Even as the fog continued to loosen its grip on his mind, the voice’s pitch climbed, becoming so raucous, that it eventually drowned out the ringing in his… ears.

That’s right! He had ears.

“I promise, if you don’t fucking get that ship down here in the next ten—no, fuck that, _five_ minutes—, I will personally see that you are so disgraced, you will never again come within a light year of your home world!”

Someone was pissed, and someone else—a male, which garnered the understanding the former had been female, as quickly as the concept of gender-diversity disintegrated— responded in gibberish, indignant, voice deep and even more distorted. Travelling a greater distance to breach his hampered auditory faculties.

Not in his _here_ , some undamaged part of his brain helpfully supplied.

The _she_ was in his here, though. Somehow, he was certain of it. And, shit if she wasn’t irritating.

Bad enough, the ruptured eardrums, (Right! That’s what that damned siren echoing about his skull was!), but he had to suffer through her manic, high-pitched bitching?

What was she griping about, anyway? Not like it had been she who’d exploded…

**_…_ **

Recollection hit like a physical blow.

_His training room had exploded!_

“No. _No!_ You get that fucking tank here, _now_! I don’t know shit of your physiology. There’s blood everywhere. Fucking _bones_ are visible. There’s so much scorched. Can’t tell if it’s all clothes, or… The medics can’t even stabilize him—"

The woman had never sounded this…unhinged.

Curious.

And, bones? Scorched? Was she referring to _him_?

Huh.

That explained the pain.

With an excruciating deep, wet inhale—broken ribs; likely one puncturing a lung—he set to the grueling task of centering his whirring mind to properly catalogue his injuries.

“As Regent Consort to the Prince of all Saiyans, I command you—”

When the fuck had she learned her formal title? For that matter, who was she lording it over?

Not important.

Focus.

Breathe.

The woman didn’t matter.

Breathe.

He needed to center his mind, assess the situation.

_Breathe._

Fuck, inhaling and exhaling was torture.

How illusive focus had become confirmed a concussion—a bad one. Still he shouldered forth, piecing the tatters of his wayward cognizance.

Calm. Focus. Concentrate.

Parting his eyelids was a no-go. Swollen shut. Blindness, possibly?

Another breath.

Prioritizing, he centered focus on his head and face. Aside from the obvious head trauma, the most severe and localized pain was at the nose, left cheek, and left eye. Broken nose, ruptured eye-socket—possible gouged eye.

Damn.

Another breath. Calm. Move on.

“I’m not dropping communications until your bald ass is standing here—"

Bitch was really letting loose on that bastard. Unbidden, his chest lurched in esteem, forcing pain to shoot through him. His jaw clenched, teeth grinding.

Fuck! Focus! Ignore her!

At least now he knew he had all his teeth… and his jaw wasn’t dislocated. But, he could not dally. He forced his thoughts to calm again.

The skin of his torso pulled unnaturally tight with his labored breathing. Burns. Severe enough that the pain there was negligible. Nerve damage.

_Shit._

He’d lost sensation to his right hand, but the burning pain at his elbow indicated that was due to a compound fracture and near-certain soft tissue tear. That sort of thing was old hat.

The left arm felt tight and achy. Burned, but not broken. Good nerve response. Small miracles.

Pressure was building steadily in his abdomen. No pain, however. Internal bleeding. A lot of it. Probably ruptured his spleen.

Double shit.

There was something else further down… maybe at the pelvis? The pain there was beyond language –never mind that at present a feat so grand as vocalization was laughable. Likely, his trachea was bruised from impact, or scorched by the smoke inhalation. Aside from the throbbing, there was another sensation at his lower torso. A pressure. An invasive… fullness. The more he focused on it, the… _cooler...?_ that area registered.

Perfect.

He was fucking _impaled_.

Whatever pinned him was massive, and extremely dense –a jagged piece of reinforced hull plating, probably— and still crushed his lower body. With dizzying effort, he managed to curl toes on both feet, and—though it was mostly pinned beneath him a mangled mess— wiggled the very tip of his tail.  

Excellent. That meant the weight had not damaged his spinal cord. And, that the jagged…whatever…protruding from his lower thigh that had excruciatingly scraped against what was atop him at the effort had not managed to sever a major artery.

…

“Fucking took you assholes long enough…”

The woman’s voice was clearer now, sewn with anxiety so acute, it forced awareness back with a lurch of his sluggishly beating heart.

When had he lost his tenuous grasp on consciousness?

She sounded so… frazzled. Why, he could not fathom. Was it over him?

Preposterous.

Her comprehension of his resiliency required serious realignment. A Saiyan Super Elite survived an explosion. Period. Over his military career, he’d survived plenty. None this severe came readily to mind, but he would chuck that up to the brain contusion.

“Landing the ship would not have been required, had you used the schematics for the tank our king so graciously—”

Nappa? His First Commander wasn’t supposed to be stationed here… or, was he? The thin thought thread unfurled when the woman’s shrill cut in.

“ _Fuck you_ , dickhole! How _dare_ you try to pin this shit on me! Prince-humpty-fucking-dumpty here has had me working non-stop for _weeks_ on nothing but building and replacing the dozens of droids he destroys on a damned hourly basis, and getting his piece-of-shit gravity simulator to produce higher levels. I’ve barely had time to sleep, much less take on a project as complex as building a regeneration tank. And, _he_ ”—Vegeta imagined he felt the heat of the righteously indignant finger he knew she pointed at him— "didn’t exactly make his well-being a priority. You know, in case the fucking spaceship collapsed atop him didn’t clue your monkey ass in.”

**_Elite Commander Nappa, meet Bulma Briefs._ **

How he wished he could see the eight-foot behemoth’s expression as he got chewed out by the chi-less speck that was this little human.

Pain shot through his jaw, into his clavicle, clueing him in on the fact that he was _smirking_.

Instantly, he forced his expression slack. Not only did that fucking _hurt_ , he’d be damned if he’d let anyone—much less his own troops—see any evidence of his esteem for the woman. His near-certainty several layers of soot and ash currently made facial expression recognition impossible, notwithstanding.

“And, I’m not about to entrust anyone else with the high-level shit the king left,” the woman continued in that vexed, high voice. “It’s hard enough keeping my own designs from leaking to the competition. All data the Saiyan provided is staying close to the che—

“—The fuck are you _doing_?”

That last arraignment corresponded to a shift of the… thing… atop him. Which so abruptly shot searing agony through every still-viable nerve ending, that pressure built in his chest, his throat.

Suffocating. Choking. Spilling over.

Suddenly, hands were at his face, forcing it sideways, as wave after wave of nausea wrecked through him. Out of him.

“Stop, motherfucker! He’s aspirating! Don’t move another inch! How dense _are_ you? If that shit’s going _through_ him, it could well be the only thing keeping his insides… in-fucking-side—”

“The panel cannot accompany him to the tank… Mistress,” came the almost bored, deep, grizzled baritone.

Good old pragmatic Nappa.

How the prince wished he could be spectating this scene: the sage aged warrior attempting to reason with the manic hellcat academic.

It was the stuff of hilarity. Or, it would be, were his life essence not presently attempting an unceremonious exodus through his facial orifices.

“You have little understanding of Saiyan tenacity. Prince Vegeta is Super Elite. As long as he breathes, he will fight to remain breathing. No matter how damaged his body, his will can overcome,” the brute explained in that sluggish drawl the prince knew the titan only used to patronize. “If his insides were to, as you’ve said, come spilling out, I am more than confident my speed is up to the task of getting him onto the ship and submerged in the tank before he… empties out.”

Now the prince heard the tinge of humor in the officer’s tone and knew—just, _knew_ —the woman caught it too. And, he visualized, clear as day, the two tiny lines appearing in between her brows at the man’s insolence.

He hoped Nappa saw it, as well. Hoped the big man, too, saw the allure of it. Deep down, in a place he’d never admit existed, he wanted his oldest, most loyal soldier to recognize what the prince recognized in this woman.

Deep, _deep_ inside, however.

“I…just wait a moment… there has to be a bet—” he heard the woman try to protest again, before the pain shattered through him ten-fold a last time.

And the nothing void of darkness welcomed him back.

~~0~~

“The burns are all but gone, just some pinkish skin. But, the deeper lacerations aren’t healing clean.”

The woman’s clinical exposition roused him to semi-awareness. Her voice came a garbled mumble, as if penetrating a barrier.

Before comprehending his eyes were open, pale light and asymmetrical forms entered his visual field. He tried to blink, but found the function beyond his ability. Something forced his eyelids ajar.

His body felt…well…nothing. He felt nothing. Complete numbness. No pain. No sensation. It was as if all his nerve receptors had been switched off.

Vaguely, he recognized he must be in a healing pod, but he’d been in pods dozens of times. It had never felt this…surreal.

“Aesthetics are of little import to Saiyans, my Lady. It is more than sufficient to have the damage repaired as quickly as possible,” another voice he recognized from some point in his distant past responded in that same ephemeral intonation.

Feminine. Soothing. Soft. Lyrical.

Fuck!

_The king couldn’t have!_

**_Asshole!_ **

A light, sequential beeping came from somewhere in what he stipulated to be the medical bay of a ship.

“He’s regained consciousness,” the soft voice said, flatly.

“So what?”

“Well… even with his eardrums ruptured, he hadn’t fully lost his hearing. Certainly, now that the damage has been repaired, he can hear perfectly well. It’s been many years, but, if memory serves, he does not appreciate being spoken of as if he is not present…”

“Yeah?” came the woman’s huffed parry, dripping sarcasm. “The fucker can deal.”

Her blur shifted, and she spoke even louder, in disdain of the doctor’s admonition. “You here that, you Royal pain in the ass? You can deal. After putting _me_ through this shit.”

_Up yours, too, bitch._

The beeping spiked and sputtered, followed by an exaggerated exhale.

Not the woman’s.

“It’s eerie, those black eyes so clear and… vacant. Can he _see_ us?”

There was a pause, punctuated by the clicking of keys, then, “The retinas have fully re-attached, but the optical nerves are only ninety percent regenerated. The medial and lateral recti must remain paralyzed for some time, yet. His eyes cannot track. Likely, his vision is impaired to where he can’t discern anything beyond maybe a meter directly before him, and the acuity is virtually non-existent. Also, he has no peripheral sight.”

“So… yes he can see, but not very well?”

“If you wish to oversimplify…”

There was another pause where—were he not incapable of feeling anything—he could swear he felt the ghost heat of the woman’s scrutiny.

“If nanites were integrated into the genetic solution, they would both expedite the process _and_ allow for more precise tissue reconstitution. They’d have less scarring. I mean, I get the whole ‘wear your scars as badges of honor’ thing, and all. But, the mars of past damage on him read like a road map.”

The other female’s tone came tinged with amusement. “I’m but a healer, Mistress. You are the scientist. I am sure whatever upgrades you make to the design will greatly ease my end of things.”

“Don’t… don’t call me… that. Or, my Lady. Or… whatever else. I’m not… Just Bulma is fine, please, Doctor—” There was a lapse, before the woman let out a strained scoff. “Shit, I’m so sorry. I’ve been here—how long?—and I hadn’t even the decency to ask…What’s your name?”

“Shitake.”

_Fuuuuuuuuck!_

There was a steep spike in the beeping in the room, followed by another long sigh.

“Wait. Dude, can you interpret his vital signs?”

That was his woman’s machine mind. Always so quick. So prolific.

“Don’t be absurd, Bulm—Dr. Briefs. As I said, I’m only a healer. Interpreting data output is in your purview, not mine,” the good Tuffle doctor lied through her teeth with an ease the prince could not help but find impressive.

She’d always been impressive.

The best. Likely, why she was here.

Well, that and because the king was a sick fuck with a correspondingly demented sense of humor.

At the speeding up of the beeping, the doctor conspicuously cleared her throat.

Taking the cue, he grudgingly set about reining his thoughts, marshaling his temper. Exacting skill mastered since earliest childhood to force his pulse to slacken.

The beeping slowed to a sluggish pulse. He heard the pride in the doctor’s voice when she next spoke. Though he wanted to murder her for what she said.

“Rarely do I get to see them this… matured. My specialty lies… elsewhere.”

_Bitch!_

B-beep…b-beep…b-beep.

Calm. Breathe.

_She’s one of the king’s favorites._

“Really?” the woman’s expected inquiry came in that introspective affectation he’d all but memorized. The one that meant she was enthralled.

Great. Now he had to plot the murder of one of his planet’s foremost physicians.

Dr. Shitake coughed conspicuously to cover a scoff, before elaborating, “Oh, yes. I hold several of what humans would call doctorates in—” there was a pause and his mole eyes registered the smaller of the two blurs before him shift. The other followed suit.

His stomach bottomed out.

Even unable to see what the doctor had wordlessly indicated, he knew.

“—obstetrics and early life pediatric medicine.”

“Fuck! Are those? Why would a warship be carrying _that_?”

His limited sight notwithstanding, he still caught the quick motion of the color stain he now knew to be the woman as easily as he caught the mortified quality to her pitched voice.

“The king commissioned them and me, to accompany Commander Nappa’s battalion, which was deployed to relieve the garrison orbiting Earth… in preparation for what his Majesty believes to be the inevitable. The king has very high hopes, after all. You should be honored. King Vegeta must hold you in quite high regard to send me.”

There was an ironically pregnant pause that seemed to go on and on, until the doctor ventured speaking again.

“I have dedicated a decades long career to the specific pre and post-natal care of Saiyan Super Elite, Elite and First-Class children, Dr. Briefs. Accordingly, I hold the honorary title of Royal Midwife. Honorary because—barring one very recent exception— it’s been a dozen generations since a true midwife was necessary in delivering Saiyan infants. But, you know how they are about tradition. I was tasked with the incubation and delivery of our good prince, here. As well as his younger brother, six years after. Upper echelon cast pregnancies account for only one in roughly two-hundred-seventy-six Saiyan births. But, the children born to those prestigious clans receive preferential treatment, as you might guess…”

Another long pause, that the prince spent struggling to keep the unexplained anxiety twisting the pit of his stomach from triggering that damned monitor.

Eventually, it was the woman who broke it.

“Yeeaah…” her inflection was flat, yet tinged with what sounded very close to… embarrassment? “That’s not happening. I don’t roll like that.”

_Fucking agreed._

“Oh?” The doctor’s voice brimmed disappointment. “I figured… seeing how you’ve been here every day since the explosion…and you’ve been so vocal about the treatments and the machinery…well…I just… couldn’t help figuring you cared…”

“Look, chick—” the woman blur shifted acutely, and he could imagine her bringing her arms to cross over her chest. That heated glare he’d so often been at the receiving end of, zeroing in on the doctor. “I have zero inclination to explain personal shit to someone who—I’m  sorry to be rude— for all intents and purposes, is a complete fucking stranger.”

Stomping footfalls accompanied the blot moving out of his extremely limited, hindered visual range, but her voice rang through clear, still tinged with that hint of bashfulness not even the imperiousness she’d suffused it with could hide. “I’m heading home for a shower, a bite, and some much-needed REM. I’ll be back in a few hours to check on the progress. While I’m gone, if you happen to speak to the good Saiyan king, you can use your extensive knowledge of  Saiyan physiology to indicate just how far up his ass he can shove those incubator pods. And, as for you—”

There was a break, where the Saiyan auditory prowess an isolation tank could never truly impair captured the woman’s ragged, fast breaths. After allowing enough time for them to considerably slow, she finished in an almost whisper, “Thank you. For agreeing to come here… to patch his dumb shit up… not for the… whatever. Just… fuck… thank-you-for-being-here—" the words veritably choked out, immediately followed by the swish of the doors parting and closing.

There were several moments of silence, before the other color blur moved further into his visual vantage.   

“I like her.”

As if he gave a damn about the doctor’s opinion.

“Whether you care to hear it or not, wiping the shit off your Royal ass bestows the right to express it.”

The nerve of this peon!

“Oh, please, Highness. Spare me. The Briefs girl was a fine choice. I was skeptical when the king first told me of the arrangement, but I can see why he liked her. Why _you_ like her.”

He certainly didn’t—

“Yeah? Why do you figure you’re under full paralysis? We both know this level of repair doesn’t necessitate it.”

Huh. It hadn’t really occurred to him…

“Because, even unconscious, your body was very acutely reacting every time she spoke. Even battered to within an inch of mortality, you were standing at full attention. I knew the child I was tasked with nursing from birth to the age of five would prefer I allow him death before suffering the shame of her knowing the power she wields. So, for the sake of confidentiality, I undertook the grueling task of systematically deadening every nerve as quickly as I could manage. I excused it as preparation for submersion to keep her off the trail. The tank is transparent, remember?”

_Well, shit._

“Exactly. Now you know the depth of your debt to me. Don’t think I won’t collect.”

…

“It’s very impressive, by the way.”

_What?_

“Your endowment, of course.”

**_What?_ **

“Oh, don’t be a prude, Vegeta. I’ve seen thousands. I was very glad to see your penis grew proportionate to that freakishly huge scrotum. Swear, in all my years, I’d never seen a sack that big on something so small. Your testicles hadn’t even dropped. It was just… a huge mass of empty fibrous tissue. It was medically fascinating.”

**_Vulgar woman!_ **

“Hey, it _was_ medically fascinating. It’s nice to see how you’ve grown, though. You’re very handsome. Always knew you’d be. Freak balls aside, you were such a beautiful baby. Tarbles was too. I hear he turned out very short. Pity. Sure he’s still handsome. You both took after your mothers. Such fine specimen of Saiyan females.”

The prince had nothing to reply to that.

“Do I correctly surmise she knows nothing of the king’s first consort?”

Unbidden, his pulse skyrocketed, triggering the monitor to beep uncontrollably.

_There was no reason the woman needed to know that!_

“Really? No reason?” The doctor’s voice sounded…worn. “She’s exceptionally beautiful, my prince. And smart, And witty. And that mouth… You _really_ can’t fathom a reason she’d need to know—?”

The woman’s attributes were inconsequential. The acknowledgment of such frivolity constituted cumbersome sentimentality. He had other priorities—

“Okay, okay. I won’t press the issue,” the elderly phycisian huffed. "Still, I couldn't help but notice she didn't object to my being here, just the pods." A deep sigh. "There's hope there, I think..."

Truly, she sounded so… tired.

“You’ve been in here seventy-eight hours. I’ve managed maybe a total of twelve hours of rest in that span. I know having another medic in with you would only serve as a source of aggravation. Especially, with how the Briefs woman has taken to keeping a vigil. That’d be counterproductive to proper healing. I figured no one else would understand the predicament.”

He inwardly scoffed. Last thing he need was a physician so impaired by sleep deprivation, she’d be incompetent to provide the care he required with due proficiency.

“I appreciate the concern,” the doctor quipped, and he saw her form shift away. “I’ll take you up on the offer. Since she’s gone for some time, I’m putting you completely under for the final round of repairs. I’ll get some rest and be back before she is.”

And with that, his reality returned to the void.

~~0~~

The change was instantly palpable when Vegeta next woke. Potential energy saturated every inch of his constituency. He veritably shook with the pent chi.

He had to _move_.

Never one to waste time, he swallowed deep to clear the disuse from his throat and shouted a firm “Out!” into his breathing mask.  

Dr. Shitake offered the token warnings about leaving the tank prematurely, extolling the risks of reopening wounds, the possible (though, he knew, nearly implausible) chance the healed breaks would give under duress.

He was no stranger to the shpeel. No Saiyan ever followed those ridiculous warnings. He wasn’t sure why physicians bothered.

His body didn’t require rest. It had lingered sedentary far too long. No. What every fiber of his being craved, yearned—

—was a challenge.

Fittingly, as soon as he was cleansed of the regenerative goo and properly outfitted in his battle suit and armor, he queried the main computer for the whereabout of his men.

Minutes later, he strutted into the officer’s mess hall, eyes immediately alighting on his quarry.

“Nappa, Radditz, wrangle the other nineteen Saiyans in this contingent. Have them assemble at these coordinates—” A data pad skidded across the table to land easily in the large Commander’s hand. “—for drills. You shitheads are growing soft flitting about space for months, instead of sharpening your skills in battle. You need a proper workout. I expect you in ten minutes. Tardiness will be dealt with accordingly.”

Turning heel, the prince quickly traipsed back for the exit, not missing his Lieutenant’s whined, “Shit! _He_ gets blasted and _we_ get punished?”

~0~

The scalding water felt spectacular, coursing over his deliciously over-taxed muscles.

It had been ten days.

Ten days of non-stop combat drills. Ten days of nearly endless sparring with his kind, in one of Earth’s middle-of-nowhere unpopulated desserts, decimating rock formations and strong Saiyan bodies alike.

Fuck, how he’d needed that.

All but Nappa were in the tanks, now. As the large Commander _should_ have been. But, the warrior’s pride would not allow for such commodity.

If he could stand, Nappa would bear the wounds without complaint of the pain the prince saw written in his shadowed, dark eyes. As was expected of an Elite.

Big man was a credit to their bloodline.

The prince's fist clenched, energy crackling, superheating with a hiss the water droplets that made contact.

He could feel it. The power of the Legendary. It was just beyond his grasp.

Through decades spent turning battle damage into strength, never before had he come so near to death. The body that emerged the tank after suffering and healing from that extent of injury pulsed with power. It was incredible. He would reach his goal soon.

He knew it. Bone deep.

_He knew it._

With a soul-shuddering exhale, he turned the nozzle to stop the spray, and quickly exited the shower, reaching for a towel on his way out of his en-suite. Absently, he onehandedly wrung the water from his hair, ruminating the potential he felt coursing through him, as he made his way across the carpeted floor to his dresser.

“Always figured you for the type to traipse about commando in here.”

His step faltered, —only his newly heightened agility keeping him from stumbling— as his head whipped toward the woman sitting at the foot of his bed, bathed in the glow of the near full moon cascading through his balcony windows, legs crossed to expose their length up to her thighs, where they disappeared under the fold of a silk robe, loosely tied about her.

She graced him with a brilliant smile.

_The fuck?_

She wasn’t there.

Well… obviously she _was_.

He wasn’t delusional.

None of his senses registered her, however.

Admittedly, she had so low a chi level that it could be easily dismissed, were he not so tuned to its unique signature after nearly a year in her company. But, he should have scented her from a mile off. And, his recently repaired eardrums should have noted the buzz of his suite door opening, her steps, the displacement of air as she’d sat on his bed.

Hell. Her fucking heartbeat.

Nothing.

There was nothing there.

Even as he stared wide-eyed at her. She was intangible as a hologram.

“Oh! Yeah—” she blurted, a hand coming to the pocket of her robe to fish something small out. He watched her depress a button at its center and, immediately, his senses were inundated.

Her scent: soft, feminine, floral, spicy, familiar.

Her aura: weak, so weak, but steady, reliable.

Her heartbeat: disparately strong in stark contrast to her physicality, also steady, rhythmic, reliable.

_Seriously, what the fuck?_

Likely in response to his bewildered demeanor, she supplied in that detached inflection she used when explaining technology, “It’s a variation on the data jammer. It’s limited, though. I can only adapt it to very specific synaptic wavelengths, and only on an individual basis. In this case, you. But, it served its purpose well enough.”

He shifted, tentatively taking a couple of steps in her direction. “Let me get this straight,” he snarled, temper quickly rising. “You fucked with my brain to sneak into my room?”

“Nope. I jammed the electrical conductivity to some very specific synapses in your brain to sneak into your room. _You_ fucked with your brain when you blew yourself up. Don’t pin any lingering brain damage Shitake couldn’t fix on me. That was all _you_ , Highness.”

Fighting hard to rein his swiftly boiling blood, he brought the hand not still holding the towel to his damp hair to the bridge of his nose, forcing his eyes shut tight to near strain. In spite of his effort, his voice still ground out like rusted steel grating rusted steel. “Why have you infiltrated my quarters, Woman.”

“So…you’re totally forgoing covering up, are you?”

With a deep exhale, he allowed his eyes to drift open into a glower. “Nothing new to you,” he stated, vexed. “Or do I misremember your unending presence in the med bay throughout my recovery?”

“Yeah…” she began, not bothering to hide the interest gleaming in her eyes as they traced his form, lingering more often than naught on his groin. “But, the umbilicals didn’t allow for a view this… unobstructed. Also, you were in shit shape. The first twelve hours, the Saiyan juice— or whatever— you were in, was so saturated with red that you weren’t visible. It took the tank a while to filter out the blood that kept oozing out of you.”

She allowed her gaze to leisure slowly over him before trailing up to lock with his. “You are very impressive, Prince Vegeta.”

Unbidden, heat flared across his neck, unto his cheeks. With a tsk, he turned away, not wanting her to notice, and instantly berating the act.

The subtle tinge to his already dark complexion could not be notable to her. He was well out of range of the moonlight streaming in. Even if, during her wait, her eyes had adapted to the room’s poor ambient light, he knew they could not capture such understated nuance.

“You have yet to state your purpose here, Woman.”

“You’ve been avoiding me.”

That forced his glare back on her. “I’ve been drilling my men. Training. That is the purpose of my exile to this godforsaken rock, is it not?”

“You’ve been brutalizing your men to within an each of their lives out in the boonies.”

He gestured an arm about aloofly. Semantics.

“Training,” he repeated, deadpan. “As of the last update from your techs, the new gravity room will not be serviceable for several more days. Circumstances what they were, improvisation was necessary. I can ill afford sloth at this phase of my training. The goal of the Legendary is nearly within grasp.”

“And our morning runs?” the woman asked, one brow hitched.

_Damn._

He didn’t have a good reply at hand for that one. His daily runs with the woman had been apt enough warm up… before. But, he’d emerged from the healing tank brimming with too much pent energy. Too much rage. Too much caged violence.

He’d needed an outlet beyond calisthenics. He’d needed combat. A purge to the viciousness that had lain dormant too long in that vat.

Could the woman understand that?

He didn’t feel inclined to explain, one way or another.

Without replying, he walked over to recline on his dresser, hands coming to wrap around the stone edge at his sides. His eyes never broke their lock on hers.

After several more moments, he was the one to break the silence. “A prince need not explain his designs, Woman.”

“Right,” she breathed, breaking the staring joust to look out the window toward the moon. “To the meat of the matter, then—”

Eyes still on the satellite, she uncrossed her legs, gracefully coming to her feet. With a sweep, a dainty hand came to the knot at the waist of her robe, nimbly unraveling it. A fluid shrug, and the silk cascaded to the floor in perfect synchrony to the motion of her elegant neck, as she turned to meet his eyes.

Not that his eyes were there to greet hers.

No.

His eyes were on _her_.

They travelled the creamy expanse of her form. They leisured over the soft, full mounds of her breasts, to the plump rose peaks. Then, they trekked down, across her firm stomach, which lacked the sinew a female of his kind would sport, but was still somehow enticing. And downward still, to trace the soft curve of her hips, the oddly hairless apex of her long legs, roving the lines of her full thighs, her trim calves, her delicate, painted toes.

Then, the onyx retraced its travels. Slowly. Languidly.

Each morsel of visual stimuli feeding into that tightening skein at his lower belly. And lower still.

His body’s reaction to her nudity lay bare to her, he knew.

In that lapse of time, he was beyond caring.

Finally, his gaze finished its journey to swim the blue of hers. The hunger found there, he knew, mirrored his own.

Slowly, with leonine ease, she moved forward, coming to stand before him, close enough that the peaks of her breasts—the skin of her nipples smooth as polished alabaster—ghosted over his pectorals, horripilating skin and spiking the nearly invisible down.

“I’m here—,” she breathed, tipping her face closer still, angled just so. Lips nothing away from his own. Eyes dipped to his mouth for an nth, before once more meeting his. “—to make formal my intention to become Regent Consort to the Prince of all Saiyans… by true Saiyan rite.”

Fuuuuuck…

The succulent warmth of her had every synapse sparking viciously, coiling every muscle so tight, he physically shuddered with the strain. The effort to keep from touching her was testing the last frayed strand of his equanimity. The stone of the dresser crumbled under his whitened grip.

“Woman,” he began, in a voice dragged from so deep in his throat, it was barely a coarse growl when it left him. “You know not what you request.”

At that, her head tipped back minutely, liquid eyes gaining that spark of brilliance he found every bit as exhilarating as the flesh she pressed against him. He forced a painfully swallow.

_Fuck, she was glorious._

“Don’t I understand?” she hissed, slowly bringing her mouth to meet his, barely touching. Just a whisper that set his existence aflame. “I’m a genius, Highness. Underestimate me at your peril. My might is equal to that of _any_ man. I built a machine capable of ending the life of the strongest Saiyan Super Elite, were it to become a whim to do so.”

Her lips moved to his cheek, still barely touching, forcing him to shift with the movement, a slave to the sensations her ministrations forced on his hyper-stimulated flesh.

“I understand the choice I make. I lay claim, not to a man, but to an ideal. The future king can never belong to any one being. He belongs to his people. His heart beats for his people. His blood burns for his people. As would that of any child to come of a union to such a man.”

With each word, her mouth moved across his jawline, to the juncture of his ear and neck, ghosting over the corded ropes of muscle, down to the sinewed start of his clavicle.

The shaking was no more in his control than the guttural moan that escaped him.

“I understand that you can never feel for me what I feel for you.”

Still, her mouth roamed lower.

“I’m a pragmatist. I’m not foolish enough to think myself capable of restructuring thousands of years of species indoctrination—just to alter your nature. Instead, I chose to embrace that nature. Also, I accept that, at some point, —though the details aren’t known to me— Saiyan tradition dictates all children spend years proving they are worthy of their bloodline. And, though it will rend my heart to part with them, I will abide the inevitability that this is my children’s duty to their people, were you to sire them.”

Her lips landed on his already hardened nipple, and she pressed them there. A kiss. Firm. Soft. Moist. Setting off an explosion of sensation that wrenched a gasp from him.

After, he couldn’t have slowed his heavy breaths if he’d given a single fuck to try.

She had him. She was fucking destroying him.

And, there was nothing he longed for more in that moment...than to be destroyed.

"But, I'll be damned if I allow some savage Saiyan bitch that's never met you, never labored, or fretted over striving to help you reach your potential, to keep you in one fucking piece-- lay claim to what is rightfully mine. Just because she was bred to it, like some priced mare."

Slowly her silken lips traced up his sternum, over his Adam’s apple, across the cleft or his chin, to land again just over his mouth.

“So, Prince Vegeta...”

He breathed the already steamed air of her exhales, as they seared past his quickly parching lips.

“What is _your_ choice? Are you Saiyan enough to meet my challenge?”

The dam imploded.

With a chest deep snarl, faster than thought, one hand buried in her hair to crush her mouth to his.

Drinking deep and greedily of her, his other hand came just as swiftly to cup the round of her bare glute, lifting.

In a blink, they were on the bed, his mouth breaking from hers to trace his tongue down the slope of her throat, which she angled to allow better access. The taste of her flesh dashed every expectation he’d subconsciously crafted.

Moans and unintelligible, mind-ending sounds emanated from that impossibly soft throat, rendering thought moot.

Vaguely, he worried he would hurt her. She was impossibly breakable. But, shit, the sounds were so fucking _good_. And he’d repressed his chi down to nothing. Surely, she would not make those sounds if pained.

No one equaled his intimacy with the sounds pain wrenched from those suffering at his hands.

This was not fucking close.

Eager for contact, his hands roamed her body, rubbing, groping, starved for tactile stimulus.

His tail wrapped about her upper thigh, tip rubbing the most sensitive of her anatomy.

Even as his mind burned from it, he listened to the sounds she made in response.

Learned.

Here the moans were softer. There she practically whimpered. That spot made her scream.

He’d always prided himself on being a quick study.

After an endless eternity of exploring and learning, drowning in the knowledge of her, he’d sated the immediate need of touch and taste enough to compose his rational mind.

With a last, long pull at her mouth, he broke away.

Her flushed heaving breasts, swollen and red-bitten mouth, and eyes lidded and dark in a need mirroring his, nearly forced him to reclaim her.

But, he was a goddamned prince. His breeding _demanded_ he abide the time-honored tradition of his people.

Even if plagued with doubts over whether the woman truly comprehended the seriousness of the bond they were initiating, he was resolved to do it right.

Vegeta was not a man of half measures. He’d made his choice. He would die and kill for the frail human woman that had managed to invade his very existence. Even if he outlived her, he would take no other. This would be his first and only mating ritual.

He deserved better than rushing it.

 _She_ deserved better.

He wrenched away before he could second guess himself, heaving a resigned growl. Rising from the bed, he  stomped to the closet at the far end of the room.

A shrill whistle split the silence of the darkened room in his wake.

“Have to admit. Confused and disappointed, but fuck if it’s not nice to watch you walk away.”

A smug smirk hitched the corner of his lip, and he gave an entirely superfluous exaggerated twist of his tail to accentuate his muscled ass, as he moved into his closet. He made a beeline for the bank of drawers spanning the back wall.

Kneeling to open the last drawer of the furthest left row, he pulled out the ornate, lacquered bleached bone box shoved to the furthest back corner.

Momentarily, his rage surged at the memory of receiving a parcel containing this a mere seventeen weeks after arriving on this world, with a note (actual fucking paper) penned in the king’s script.

_“So you’re ready when the time arises.”_

Arrogant fucker knew. He always fucking knew. He despised him for knowing.

The rage didn’t abate as he made his way back to the woman, who was now seated cross-legged on the bed, head cocked in a mix of exasperation and curiosity. “If the need for a stroll struck just then, I don’t think I’m doing this right…”

A snort wrangled its way out, in spite of the ire the thoughts of the king had elicited. Suppressing his amusement, he tossed the box at her intertwined calves, before sitting at the edge of the bed beside her. “Open it. Put it on.”

With an unimpressed, yet curious look, she deftly flipped the latch and opened it.

An awed exhalation escaped her, and her eyes quickly darted to his, questioning.

“Put it on, Woman.”

With a reverence that made his chest inexplicably clench, her delicate fingers delved back into the box, working quickly a moment before she lifted the chain, holding the medallion at eye level for better inspection.

“It’s beautiful,” she breathed, mesmerized. “What is it?”

He let out an irritated scoff. “It’s yours… if you’ll truly have it.”

“Okay. Vague. Let’s try another angle. Why did you stop… _that_ … to get me… _this_?”

He ran a hand through his still moist hair and released a long breath through flared nostrils. “Damn it, Woman. It’s tradition,” he whispered harshly, respectful of the solemnity of this moment, even if the indolent Terran wasn’t. “Every Royal Consort is to wear it for the mating rite. My mother wore it. My paternal grandmother wore it. Her mother, and so on. We can’t continue until _that_ ”—he pointed a stern finger at the chain— “is about you neck. Now, do you want it or not?”

Instead of complying, because she was Bulma-fucking-Briefs and, apparently, prolonging his torture was the peak of amusement, she held it up again. She squinted at the stone emblem embedded into the medal. “This is the standard of the Saiyan Royal family.”

Her eyes traced to him, large, twinkling in excitement.

“This is so boss, man!” she squealed, finally deigning to clasp the chain at the nape of her neck with quick, adept fingers.

His eyes rolled severely at her melodramatics.

But a breath lodged when her hands dropped, and the medallion of his ancestors sat nestled just at the start to the cleft of her blushing, plump breasts.  

Animal instinct took over and he was on her again, tongue lapping at the skin encircling the charm at her sternum, then roving to suckle at the hardening peaks of her breasts. He basked in the sounds she made when he did so.

Once again, he took his time, committing to memory every inch of her flesh his mouth, wandering hands and tail reached. Branding his consciousness with every mewl, yelp, moan, and gasp his ministrations elicited.

The ordeal was not peaceable. The woman thrashed beneath him, savage. Untamed. Greedily grinding her core against his hardened manhood, desperate to sate her lust.

She was feral.

She was magnificent.

She was his.

And, when he had prolonged the sensorial experience for them both to its zenith, to finally thrust into her dripping, scalding sex…

...he knew, incontrovertibly...

...nowhere else had he more entirely _belonged_.

~0~

Vegeta woke from a sleep deeper than he’d ever experienced, to an unprecedented predicament.

He was starved.

Not for food.

He’d never known hunger like this.

The mere shift of position that caused the light sheets to grace his engorge manhood had him veritably hyperventilating.

Morning erections weren’t a new occurrence. He’d suffered through them since the age of eleven. Usually, he could center his thoughts, managing to redirect his blood flow, mitigating the biological response to where it no longer posed a problem. Control over chi and physiology was expected of every Saiyan. They learned it from infancy.

This was on a whole other plane, however. Images of his night with his woman raged through his mind, making focusing enough to… fix this…impossible. He had no precedence for this. No amount of controlled breathing would help. He needed.

Needed.

Fuck if he could articulate what he needed, even in the confines of his mind.

His existence simply narrowed to all-consuming _need_.

And instinct ancient as time supplied the means to sate it.

Shifting onto his side with a pained/pleasured hiss, he reached a hand to the woman sleeping soundly a few inches from him, conveniently turned away.

Perfect.

Without pomp, he pressed against her, rutting his need into the dip of her buttocks.

The hand dipped between her thighs and his stomach tightened upon finding the lingering evidence of their earlier activities. His eyes rolled back as her scent suffused him, fingers working her until she released a shuddered moan through her dreams. He couldn’t stop grinding against her. She felt spectacular.

A clear fresh spring in the midst of a dessert.

Fuck, he _needed_.

“Woman,” he groaned headily into the curls at the base of her neck. In vain. She didn’t rouse.

“Bulma,” he tried again in a husked whisper. More desperate. Her name still sounded foreign on his tongue. Though it had become a newfound mantra the four times he’d found his release within her before.

Apparently, that did the trick, because she tried to shift toward him and released a confused gasp when the still-moving hand at her apex hindered the effort.

“What?” she mumbled, still wrapped in sleep.

“Don’t move,” he whispered across the shell of her ear, breathing deep the scent of day-old soap, stale perspiration, and their combined arousal that permeated her skin. That animal _thing_ within ignited, nearly making him lose his train of thought. “I just… I must have… _need_ more…”

She listed back into her previous position, face shoved so far into her pillow, he fleetingly wondered how she didn’t suffocate.

“Insatiable asshole.”

Her muffled groan reached him only because of his superior hearing, he was certain.

However, he couldn’t take it as dissention, when the shift raised her rump just enough to grant the perfect angle.

Certainly, no complaints were issued, while he took his fill of her, well until light again breached his balcony windows. 

* * *

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wonderful rough short comic by the amazing rutbisbe:  
> [](http://tinypic.com?ref=fvbjg6)
> 
> I'm naming all the Tuffles after mushrooms. Seems fitting. Took my time with this one. First time I write anything near this intimate. It ended up far longer than I expected (or wanted).  
> As always, pre-read, not edited. Editing will come over the next few days. If you find errors, please point them out and I will correct.
> 
> If you have enjoyed the journey thus far, please leave a kudos, or feel free to let me know your thoughts in a comment. 
> 
> :O)


	8. Growth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Our protagonist navigate the challenges of pregnancy.

* * *

 “This kid hates me.”

“Already, it demonstrates the mean, manner, _and_ discriminating acumen of the Royal pedigree.”

A single hand, middle finger erect, poked out from above one of the several flowering bushes bracketing the stone path the woman had been forced behind on and off throughout their run.

He smirked, hands coming to cross behind his neck as he turned his attention back to the roaming clouds, centering his mind and pacing his breathing. “That’s what got you in this predicament in the first place.”

“No—” the woman emerged from behind the bush, swiping a kerchief that had also made its fair share of appearances that morning across her mouth, and digging in the cleavage of her compression bra for a capsule she quickly depressed and tossed a few feet from where he lay.

“—Pretty sure my shitty life choices landed my ass in this predicament,” she grouched, kneeling to open the mini fridge that materialized from the capsule she’d tossed. He easily caught the chilled water bottle she tossed him, not shifting his eyes from the sky, as she gracelessly plopped to sit beside him on the immaculate lawn.

She took a long gulp of her own bottle, swished it and spit to her left, before adding, “You know the old adage: ‘Lie with dogs and you’ll get fleas.’”

Out the corner of his eye, he caught her conspicuous once-over.

“Par for the course with monkeys, as it were…”

In a blink, he was over her, weight supported on his forearms and hands pinning her wrists above her head, just so, keeping the bottle still in her grip from tipping. His lips came to graze the shell of her ear, and he husked, “Not what you said when I went inside you earlier this morning, Woman.”

He raked bared teeth down the column of her throat, relishing the moan and inadvertent shiver that ran through her, as he breathed deep her scent. It had gained a slightly sweeter edge to it with her condition. But, still, the mix of pheromones, morning dew, right-after-showering perspiration, and spicy musk, saturated his olfactory senses, igniting his blood. Not even the mild hint of bile that had taken to linger about her the past few weeks (again, a consequence of her condition) could mitigate the desire the essence of her awoke.

“Forgive the lapse, Highness. It’s hard to remember coital dialogue when you spend the ten minutes immediately following bowed over the toilet, losing what little was left of last night’s supper,” she huffed, feigning irritation, even as she began squirming beneath him for more contact.

“That happened through no fault on my part,” he spoke into her heated skin, tracing his way back up her jawline. He broke off just enough that he could meet her eyes and showcase an evil grin. “As you said, the brat despises you.”

His eyes remained locked on her darkened, half lidded ones, as he moved to cover her already agape mouth—armed with a riposte—with his own, when her gaze shifted to over his shoulder and widened.

“Hello, Commander… Lieutenant…”

Instantly, Vegeta flipped off, coming to an easy crouch at her side. With eyes narrowed viciously at his men, he gracefully rose to his full height, spine straight, shoulders tense.

Nappa immediately bowed his head in deference, a scowl and flush staining his grizzled cheeks. Raditz made a mockery of an attempt at the same obsequious gesture, but the effort was ruined by the kind of shit-eating grin that had the prince calculating how severely he’d have to dislocate the idiot’s jaw to make the reproduction of that expression impossible.

“Apologies, Sire,” Nappa quickly grumbled, head bowing even deeper, to where the prince could no longer see his eyes. “You ordered us to meet you in the solarium at eight-hundred hours for drills. It is eight-hundred-thirteen hours. We were… surprised by the delay. It is… out of character… for you to miss an appointed meeting. We came thinking you might appreciate your men’s assistance with some unforeseen…situation. We beg your forgiveness for intruding.”

Without responding, Vegeta flipped down the scouter he’d taken to wearing again, upon the arrival of his personal regiment to garrison Earth. It was simply more practical for keeping track of his people.

As he read the time print on the read out, he grunted, irritated.

He was indeed late. And, he’d been too absorbed in the woman to notice the chi equivalent of two dinosaurs come up right behind him.

_This was a fucking problem!_

“I’m to blame for his being late, fellas.” The woman’s voice broke him out of his outraged introspection, and he shifted his gaze from Nappa to where she stretched a hand out to his Lieutenant, who quickly took it, effortlessly lifting her to her feet.

His glare zeroed in on the gigantic paw eclipsing his woman’s fragile hand to her mid foreman, spiking his pulse.

The lowbred asshole had fucking _touched_ her.

And, the act had been completely natural for them both, indicating this was not a singular occurrence. They were familiar enough to touch casually.

It took monumental restraint to keep from immediately rushing the insolent shithead. Instead, the prince took a few calming breaths and made a mental list.

Dislocate the fucker’s jaw.

Check.

Pulverize every finger in his dominant hand.

Check.

Perhaps, even deny him use of the regeneration tank, so he’d have to heal naturally. Slowly. Painfully. One bone realigned at a time.

That would teach Raditz to think long and hard before deeming himself entitled to touching his Regent Prince’s mate again.

Unaware of the storm within him, the woman continued, conversationally, “I slowed us down. Had to keep stopping to puke out an organ. For a Saiyan, this thing”—she pointed both index fingers at her middle— “sure doesn’t seem to want food. If it keeps this up, it’s going to starve us both.”

Vegeta had known Nappa just about his whole life. The old warrior had been Commander of his mother’s regiment long before he’d been conceived. Never had he known the brute to show concern.

Over anyone. Not even his own offspring.

Certainly, never before had he witnessed the man’s massive brows furrowed as they did now, while he scrutinized the tiny Terran female before him. “I realize it is not my place to suggest, Mistress, but embryos are viable for pod gestation at six weeks. You are past that milestone. Perhaps, for the sake of both the child and your continued health—”

“Yeah, no dude,” the woman cutoff with a dismissive wave of her hand. “I’m not a hen in a poultry farm. I’m not having my kid incubated for me. Humans are born, not hatched.”

“No disrespect intended,” she quickly appended, keenly noting the insulted expressions of the three men surrounding her. “You all keep doing the pod baby thing that works for you, and I will do it the old fashioned human way. There’s seven billion of us. Pretty sure if a few hundred million women—and Chi Chi— pulled it off… I can too.”

Nappa didn’t look especially appeased by that answer.

Honestly, neither was the prince.

But, the woman had made her choice. And, Saiyan tradition stipulated, it was _her_ choice. Further naysay would be tantamount to dishonor.

Vegeta could see it in his Commander’s demeanor, as his attention flit from her still-flat, exposed abdomen to the grassy ground at his booted feet. He would not disparage her agency in this matter by belaboring the point.

As was expected of every subject loyal to their sovereigns.

“It’s going to hurt like a bitch, though, ain’t it? Pushing that thing out through your privates, and all? That’s gotta hurt like hell…”

Three sets of eyes, two onyx and one blue, tracked wide toward Raditz. Only the blue pair held a glimmer of amusement. The other two held murder.

“Yeah, Raditz,” the woman scoffed with a broad smile. “It hurts like a bitch. Still gonna do it. I’m tougher than I look.”

Now Raditz’s expression shifted to confusion, head tilting in that infantile way that befitted no eight-and-a-quarter-foot-tall, half-ton, muscle bound male. Ever.

But instead of voicing whatever inanity was circling about his brain like a solitary marble in an empty bowl—likely, something along the line of “No, you’re really not—", he spared a glance at Nappa, then Vegeta, and immediately clammed up. He attempted that shrinking into his shoulders thing that he mistakenly believed made him look less imposing, but really only served to make him look mentally deficient, in the prince’s estimation.

“Anyway,” the woman broke the tension with a beaming smile. She bent to tap a button on the side of the mini fridge to encapsulate it and tuck it back into the cleft of her breasts.

Had he not been wearing gloves, Vegeta’s fingernails would have bitten bloody marks into his palms at the sight of both his men tracking the motion to the woman’s bosom. She’d always been endowed, but her condition had somehow made them even plumper. And the compression bra did nothing to cover the large swells peaking from the top.

He couldn’t even fault them. Men were men. And his mate was exceptional. She would forever court attention. But, damn if it didn’t take an exorbitant portion of self-control to keep the snarl bubbling at the back of his throat from escaping.

“I’m off. I have a board meeting in an hour. I need a shower and a change of clothes. Maybe this little sucker will let me keep down some crackers and a ginger ale…”

With the respectful detachment he’d made clear was a preference when in the company of others, she waved and began a brisk walk down the path leading to the research building.

“Vegeta—” Raditz began the moment the woman was out of earshot, in the practiced groveling whine the prince had suffered time and again when the half-wit had managed to fuck something up on a mission. He was a prolific fighter, and a deceptively proficient battlefield analytics specialist, but, when it came to common sense, and tact… he was useless as a fucking rock.

Not deigning him worthy of a reply, the prince instead directed his next words at his Commander.

“You’re charged with drills today. I assume the men are gathered?”

At the bob of the man’s bulbous bald head, he continued imperiously, “Excellent. Run them through the katas until noon. Then, you can resume your posts after a meal. I will expect the evening debriefing at the usual time. You are dismissed.”

Nappa brought a fist to his chest, giving a quick head bow, but hesitated where he stood, shooting a furtive glance Raditz’s way.

“If I may inquire, Sire. What are the Lieutenant’s orders for the day?”

Allowing a vicious smirk, Vegeta answered in a low growl. “The Lieutenant will be serving as my sparring partner this morning.”

“Aw, shit, no, Vegeta. I didn’t do nothin’!” Raditz moaned again.

Without acknowledging the underling, the prince addressed his Commander once more, voice edged with a note of finality. “You have been dismissed, Commander Nappa.”

Vegeta watched the large man bow again, deeper, before taking flight in the direction of the city outskirts. Without preamble, he turned heel, heading for the Capsule Corp. gardens, Raditz following a step behind…

…pleading and arguing his case for leniency…

…the prince was in no mood to extend.

~~0~~

“How’s Shitake supposed to handle a real pregnancy and delivery, when her specialty is pod incubation?” the woman quipped, shifting side to side in the nude, scrutinizing from every angle the small, firm round of her lower abdomen in the standing mirror. The looking glass was a new addition to his quarters, which they’d been sharing since the ritual formalization of their union.

The decision had been equal parts unspoken and undisputed.

He’d be damned if he’d spend the few sleep hours his routine afforded in a lilac-walled room riddled with children’s stuffed toys.

Seriously, how fucking old _was she_?

He sent her a scowl, shifting his weight onto an elbow on the bed, where he’d lain several minutes after his shower, impatiently waiting for her to finish the nightly regimen she’d only recently instituted of exhaustively studying the changes slowly transforming her body.

He had shit to do (namely her, at the moment) and a schedule to keep. He had no patience for this inanity. His response was accordingly short and irritated.

“Only Tuffles enlisted and active in the force utilize pods for reproduction. Most never leave Sadala, and rarely take advantage of the incubators. As is the case for humans, the majority of their cast prefer to reproduce through natural means, only enlisting the aid of numbing agents at delivery. That aside, Shitake spent the requisite decade after completing her studies as a military field medic. She has studied the reproduction of hundreds of species and assisted in their gestation and birthing. I’m adequately certain one high maintenance human female’s pregnancy is within the scope of her abilities.”

She sent him a tightlipped glare in the mirror, before her eyes shifted one last time to her middle. Then, with a resigned huff and shrug, turned away and made her way to the bed.

Finally.

As soon as the nightstand light went out, his tail reached out, effortlessly bringing her flush, and he buried his face in the cleft of her ever swelling, impossibly soft breasts to take a deep inhale. He would not have thought it possible to find her scent more alluring, but her progressing condition had heightened it to where restraining from breathing her in tested the limits of his sanity.

“I’m having a gettogether in a few days.”

Shit. Perfect. She was _chatty_ tonight.

Unbidden, he continued his oral exploration of her body, shifting over her, forearms braced at her sides to support his weight. He smirked into her navel when his ministrations were rewarded with a gasp.

“Shitake says I’m far enough along. I’m having some people over to announce the pregnancy. It’ll sorta also be a baby shower, but no one has to bring anything. I don’t need anything. It’ll just be games, a ridiculous amount of food and sweets… and reminiscing. I don’t expect you to, but I wouldn’t hate it if you showed. Hell, not even human fathers like suffering through baby showers—”

She gave a breathy scoff that he wasn’t sure was due to humor at the anecdote she was relaying—which he barely paid mind to— or his mouth landing on that special spot just right of her pelvic bone…

“I invited my assistants… and the techs in my inner circle… and Chi-Chi… and the guys. You remember the guys from the wedding reception, right? Master Roshi, and Oolong, and Krillin, and Puar, and Yamcha…”

That hit like a tundra artic gale, and immediately, he broke contact, hovering a few inches above her, dark eyes shadowed and smoldering.

“You invited a former _intended_ to a gathering specifically geared at announcing that you carry _my child_?”

Something akin to contrition flickered in her eyes for a moment before they hardened in defiance. Her cadence matched the vehemence and pitch of his. “Yamcha is a childhood friend, Vegeta. Just like Goku. Just like Krillin. The guys are interwoven into the tapestry of the person I am today. I wouldn’t be who I am without their influence. Anything Yamcha and I shared beyond that was dead and buried long before I ever even learned what a Saiyan was, certainly long before I met you. I’m not cutting a friend out of my life just to placate some ridiculous, unfounded, petty jealousy—”

“I am _not_ jealous of that imbecilic, whorequeef, weakling!” he growled, one-handedly pinning her hands—which she’d braced across his pectorals during her diatribe—over her head, mindful of keeping his weight off her middle with the forearm still braced on the bed. The new position forced her upper torso exquisitely flush against him.

His rage, and the indomitable obstinacy burning in her half-lidded eyes, only served to further rouse his passion.

How could someone incense him so, while simultaneously making him so fucking aroused?

As if reading his mind, the woman gave a slight upward shift of her hips, which—as his engorged manhood had been poised _just there_ —completed the venereal fusion of their bodies.

All the air left his lungs in a pleasured moan, head lulling so that his forehead met hers, as the woman’s hips found a rhythm that purged all cogency from his mind.

“So,” she hissed against his panting lips, modulating the undulation of her body beneath him. Forcing another harsh moan from his throat. “If you’re not jealous, you’ll make an appearance at my party?”

In a breath, he’d shifted their positions, so she could continue the exquisite onslaught from a higher vantage, and snarled a resolute, if guttural…

“Fuck no.”

~~0~~

With a howl, the prince backhand sprinted away from the beam, immediately shooting a chi blast at the droid it had originated from. Fast as light, the bot dodged, appearing half a foot to the right and discharging again. He pivoted to avoid the blast, only to come into the range of another droid that appeared just at his periphery. Instinct alone forced a side roll.

Not quick enough. Searing pain shot through his left shoulder. A direct hit.

Fuck!

_He was better than this._

_He was faster than this._

He just needed to fucking _concentrate._

However, _there_ stemmed the root of his problem.

He _couldn’t_ focus.

Not with the raging hard-on he’d been fruitlessly trying to ignore the last nearly five hours.

He’d tried breathing exercises to center his mind, to expunge images of the woman—glowing, nude and sumptuous—from his psyche. It had worked at first, but it was getting increasingly difficult. His body simply would not cooperate with his will.

It’d been five weeks and three days.

Five weeks and three days since he’d last indulged in his mate’s flesh.

Five weeks and three days since Dr. Shitake had discreetly requested a private meeting at the office in Capsule Corporation’s Medical Ward she’d been assigned for her deployment on Earth.

Five weeks and three days since he’d stood before the doctor, hands gripped behind him, staring into those keen, intelligent eyes, that brimmed with worry, while the aged physician had made the simple, clinical declaration: As of the woman’s last exam, the fetus was twenty-four weeks along. And, therefore, no longer viable for transplantation to pod gestation.

He could rationalize no better now than those five weeks and three days ago, the suffocating skein of anxiety that clamped about his chest at that revelation.

There had been no argument from the woman at their next meeting, when he’d stated with finality his need for distance to focus on his training. She’d simply packed a capsule with a few weeks’ worth of clothing and walked him through the living quarters of his gymnasium, which he’d never before made use of beyond a quick restroom stop. Though, she had made him aware the facility was designed to be self-sustaining and space-faring, were the need to travel off-planet for drills ever come to pass.

She’d averted her eyes the entire time, even as she’d made her way out, throwing over her shoulder that her mother would still prepare all his meals, so he wouldn’t need to use the capsulized provisions in the small kitchen.

Still, he knew, had meeting her gaze been possible, what would’ve swam the ocean of her eyes: disappointment.

The jury was still out on how he felt about that.

The decision had been practical, not personal, after all.

At the time, he believed himself overwhelmed by the reality that he had fathered another being. That he was responsible for another living thing for the first time in his life.

Though that fact had been true for months, it hadn’t gained immediacy until that day in Dr. Shitake’s office.

Accordingly, he’d assumed distance from the situation to assess, calculate, and come up with a strategy to overcome… whatever this was… would ultimately prove the best course. A lifetime’s experience as a soldier testified to that being the most efficient protocol when confronted with an especially difficult task.

And, it had worked. At first. For a week and a half. Partly.

He’d been able to block the outside from his mind and focus entirely on his training.

It had been amazing.

But, the tightness in his chest never completely abated. And, after the first few days, he’d begun experiencing a sort of withdrawal. After so many months of indulging his biology’s carnality on a daily basis, his body craved the physiological and psychological catharsis.

The erections had been a mild inconvenience at first, easily overlooked and ignored. But, as time passed, they became more and more of a problem. Recently, they had begun impairing his training.

It had to stop. And, he was ready to concede his plan had failed. Even if his pride took a massive blow for it.

He needed to attack the situation from a different angle— a new strategy.

But first, he needed something else…

With a hissed, “Fuck!”, he painfully adjusted his throbbing penis, so the waistband of his compression pants held it firm to his lower belly, and quickly fished a button-down long enough to cover past his groin out of the craft’s living quarters’ tiny closet.

He tossed it on haphazardly as he made his way out the gravity generator’s hatch.

~0~

“Woman!” Vegeta shouted, pushing through the wooden doors of the conference room with more violence than necessary, and the woman’s disgruntled, rotund receptionist huffing and puffing at his heels.

Stopping short just past the threshold, he circled a look about at the room, cataloguing its inhabitants, all seated about a long table and turned to stare wide-eyed at him. As did the woman, who stood at the head of the table before a wall-spanning monitor displaying an assortment of charts and graphs.

Recognizing several of the military officers he’d seen at the gala he’d been forced to attend—including Admiral Shithead—, he discerned he’d interrupted some diplomatic meeting. Likely something of import to the woman’s company. Accordingly, he tried again, in a marginally less insolent, if equally loud intonation, “Bulma, I require a word… immediately.”

“I’m so sorry, Dr. Briefs. I tried to explain you were engaged this afternoon, b-but his Highness was quite adamant he speak with you…” the receptionist sputtered, nervously wringing her hands.

The prince spared the mousy woman a bland glance before refocusing on his mate. “It is a matter of utmost urgency.”

Eyes cautiously narrowed, the woman cleared her throat roughly, garnering back the attention of those seated about the room. Her voice came somehow both apologetic and authoritative. “You all remember my husband, as well as the role he plays in safeguarding our planet. Obviously, if he has chosen to interrupt this caucus, there is a matter of importance he needs to discuss. We can close the minutes here. Further keynotes you would like addressed can be sorted out through video conference, I’m sure. Please, feel free to schedule an appointment with my secretary at a later time—”

“If it’s so important to Earth’s safety, surely those of us in this room should be privy to this data,” Admiral Shithead argued, earning him a vicious glare from the prince.

Damn, he wanted to mutilate that asshole.

“As previously agreed, Admiral—,” the woman countered with a smile so saccharine and fake, Vegeta was certain it fooled no one in the room, especially not its intended target.

“All dissemination of data on the Saiyans’ protection of our planet will go through my company. I assure you, I would not keep anything that would threaten this world from you. That being said, this meeting is adjourned, gentlemen.”

With more than a few protests grumbled under their breath—and allowing the prince a more than generous berth—, the occupants of the room swiftly departed, escorted by the woman’s receptionist.

Once they were alone and the wooden doors securely closed, the woman shifted to lean on the conference table, arms coming to cross over her distended stomach. Her voice was a cross between annoyed and curious. “We’ve talked about this, Vegeta. You can’t just—”

In a blink, he was on her, mouth crushed to hers, choking off the breath needed to finish her reproach.

He broke off long enough to breathe unto her swollen lips, “You. Naked. Bed. Now.”

~0~

“Holy fuck!” the woman gasped, collapsing in sated exhaustion over his sweat drenched chest, as far as the large swell of her middle would allow. Which was no longer especially far, he noted, as he breathed through the aftershocks of his last climax.

Likely because straddling him after depleting all the strength in her taxed thighs left her in so uncomfortable a position, she almost immediately collapsed sideways unto the tangle of sheets they’d made of the bed, also working on regulating her panted breathing.

After several moments of enjoying the peaceable post-coital silence, only intermittently interrupted by their combined inhales and exhales, the woman propped herself on an elbow, and turned toward him with a huge Cheshire grin.

“Hello stranger. Such a pleasure to make your acquaintance.”

He allowed himself a scoff, not shifting to meet her gaze. “Tch. Impudent wench.”

Still smiling impishly, she moved forward to lay her chin on the indent of his shoulder blade. “Soooo,” she began in a lilting, mocking tone. “Is this a hit-and-run thing, or… Because, I need to know… To make plans… You know, in case I need to revisit my plans of taking on a lover to alleviate this insufferable hormonal horniness…”

He let out a true laugh. The first he’d allowed himself in weeks. “Have fun finding a shithead on this rock willing to have his dick off.”

The woman chuckled, clearly taking the very real threat in jest.

Vegeta’s mind, however, had reverted to a memory of Trials. When a boy twice the prince’s age and size, who’d managed to outgrow his yearly allotment of clothing only a quarter into that annual curriculum, had challenged him over a sizeable kill he’d made the first week of their deployment on an especially inhospitable jungle asteroid.

Likely looking to claim bragging rights over defeating the king’s son—with his unique flame of hair, anonymity was impossible—and, assuming the young prince’s size somehow equal to his fighting prowess, the genetic monster had gotten the jump on him, beating the veritable shit out of him, until he lay near unconscious on the muddy ground.

As he lay a mangled mess at the brute’s feet, the boy made to lay claim to his scalp as proof of his dominion, which was a rather common Trials practice and served two purposes.

First, it was the only method available to any of them for proving such a claim, as technology was strictly forbidden on deployments. Secondly, it was the highest form of dishonor, as their hair never grew back, and they would forever bare the shame of their defeat.

To perform the deed, the massive teen had lugged him up by his mane, angling a rudimentary blade carved of tree bark at his forehead. As the act necessitated the use of both hands and left his middle completely exposed, the large boy was completely unprepared when the small prince made his move.

As had occurred before and would repeat often thereafter, his enemy had underestimated the prince’s guile.

And the sharpness of Saiyan teeth.

Vegeta remembered how he’d spat and wiped the salt from his mouth on his long sleeves, taking his kill by the hind quarters to drag off to the lean-to shelter he’d fashioned a half-day’s walk away, and leaving the massive boy writhing on the ground, howling in agony at the loss of that most precious organ.

Years later, he’d learn the boy—a scion of one of Sadala’s most prestigious Super Elite families—had perished from massive blood loss that day.

All for the best, the prince supposed. The kid had been better off dead. And that one beast –supplemented with foraged tubers and wild greens—had sustained Vegeta for the remainder of the deployment. Once he’d implemented a skill learned from Trials tutors to fashion a smoker out of packed mud and foliage to preserve it.

In hindsight, he would have preferred to end the boy’s suffering immediately. As a mercy to his own kind and clan. However, the prince had been seven at the time, and not yet indoctrinated in the skill to finesse killing with elegance.

More opportunities to refine that aptitude would arise over time, however. That neutered boy was hardly the only fatality at his hands during his tenure in Trials.

Trials were meant to exact a toll, after all.

“Hey! Where’d you just go?” the woman nudged him with her chin, still smirking, effectively breaking the reverie.

“Nowhere you’d be inclined to follow.”

“Yeah…not going to question that one,” she conceded, shifting so her front snuggled closer to his side and she could lay her cheek on his shoulder instead of her chin, taking some tension off her neck. It brought her belly right up against his hand, prompting him to run his fingers across it.

“It’s larger than the last time we were together like this,” he commented absently, turning on his side to more closely study her middle.

She turned away abruptly, hand swiping across the bed and gripping one of their discarded covers to bring over her exposed body. “Yeah, well… you know…” she huffed, a tinge of self-consciousness to her tone.

He grabbed for her wrist mid act and pulled her back into their previous position, solemn eyes coming to lock on hers, as he stated with authority, “There is no shame in this. This body is strong. It nurtures and protects one of Royal Saiyan blood. All should be envious of a body such as this.” He pressed a palm flat to the firm, distended skin, where the fetus’s chi pulsated.

“This body… full of _my_ child,” he finished in a whisper.

She sniffled and graced him with a watery smile, making some offhanded comment about “damned hormones” they both knew was a stretch of the truth, at best. But the ruse proved beneficial to both their pride, so he didn’t call her on it.

“Still, though, aesthetics aside,” the woman groaned tiredly. “It’s a bitch to lug around. It’s been weeks since I can find a comfortable position to sleep, and I’ve pretty much resolved myself to endless lower back pain.”

His brow quirked at this and he ordered in a firm voice, “Turn around.”

With a dubious, narrowed gaze, the woman complied after some hesitancy.

Rolling his eyes, he called forth a small amount of chi to encase his hand, and pressed it firmly to the woman’s lower back, thumbs digging to work the knotted muscles he found there.

“Fuuuuuck!” the woman exhaled, body reflexively elongating and shuddering. “That’s better than the sex, dude.”

She tried to send him an amazed look over her shoulder, but he only caught a small peak at her profile. “Seriously, you leave again and I’m replacing your ass with a handheld shower head and a heating pad.”

He suppressed a smirk. “I have no plans to depart again for the foreseeable future.”

“What about training?” came the sleepy retort.

Quickly, his eyes dashed to the clock on the stand at her side of the bed. They’d spent hours… reconnecting. It was almost ten. “It can wait until morning—

 —just this once.”

The woman hummed contentedly as he continued to systematically work the kinks out of her back with heated fingers. After she’d grown silent long enough that he believed she’d fallen asleep, he was startled when she suddenly spoke, uncharacteristically quietly.

“Vegeta, what happened to the king’s first consort?”

Immediately, his hand faltered on her skin, prompting her to turn back to him, large liquid eyes earnest and inquisitive. “I’m not trying to pry into your private stuff, believe me. It’s just… the timing of when you left seemed… off. It triggered a memory of something I read in your biographical profile, a link to your mother’s. There are some… inconsistencies in her profile.”

The question had come so far out of left field, he was at a loss to answer. Apparently taking his silence as cue to elaborate, the woman shifted closer and reached for his now cooling hand, intertwining their fingers.

“Your mother died months before you were born, which is not unusual for a Saiyan warrior. But, her profile states she died ‘courageously safeguarding the glorious future of The Empire’. That led me to think she died at the front. But the date of her death doesn’t correlate to any battles, or even skirmishes I could find in the database. That made me think maybe it had something to do with how you… freaked when I passed the deadline for pod incubating this baby. Which led me to ask Shitake about it, since she was charged with—you know—incubating you, or whatever. But she told me it’s not her story to tell. Which is pretty fucking unhelpful from one’s obstetrician, if you ask me. So…I’m asking the only person I can imagine actually knows: How did the king’s first consort really die, Vegeta?”

Instead of tightening that knot of tension at his sternum as he would have expected, her question had the oddly cathartic effect of slightly loosen it. And he realized, after all those weeks, just what that fucker had been.

With that realization, came the knowledge of how to abolish it. And the knowledge of just how hard a toll on his pride that abolition would exact.

However, there was little say in the matter.

Time to drop his metaphorical balls.

He shifted closer, keeping his tenor just as tacit as the woman’s had been.

And allowed that twine in his chest to unfurl into a story.

“My people’s Super Elite clan is, by far, the smallest. Out of hundreds, there are only sixty-seven families that can be counted on to consistently produce offspring of that lofty rank, the most prestigious of which is the Royal bloodline. Accordingly, the families intermarry. Though we are few, there is enough genetic diversity to prevent in-breeding. Because only males had been born to all these families for a generation and a half, the king waited a decade past his thirty-seventh birthday to be assigned a mate, who, at the time, had only just turned seventeen and completed Commencement.

“And she was magnificent. A warrior without match for her generation, who refused to become the king’s consort until she’d proven her mettle in battle, serving a decade as Captain of a battalion before she’d succumb to the duty of her breeding.

“Once she deemed it appropriate, she came to the king. They tried, unsuccessfully, to conceive a child for half a year, after which, the consort grew restless. She bargained to be deployed back to the front for six months, after which she would return and again attempt to conceive the king’s child.”

Vegeta absently rubbed at his woman’s stomach, eyes distant, lost in the memory.

“She made it two-and-a half months before collapsing moments from the start of a crucial engagement from what was at the time, some unknown reason. She was rushed back to Sadala, where the king’s physicians examined her and discovered a previously unprecedented phenomenon in our people’s twelve thousand years of recorded history.”

The woman shifted ever closer, enveloping his sweat-cooled skin in her soothing warmth. He would never admit how much that helped get the next part out.

“There was a congenital malformity, a fissure in the Royal Consort’s left fallopian tube so infinitesimal, it was entirely overlooked throughout the course of extensive medical vetting the matchmakers undertook before deigning her worthy of the king. In fact, it was so small, it was stipulated nothing larger than a cell, or maybe a cluster of less than a dozen cells, could have breached it.”

Vegeta took a long exhale, watching as his little woman’s eyes grew keen, that vicious monster of a mind whirling.

“Ectopic pregnancies aren’t viable,” she breathed with clinical certainty, barely audible. “The body has no suitable blood source to sustain it outside the womb. And, even if it found somewhere to attach, it’s medical qualification would change. It’d be parasite, a tumor—a cancer. The immune system would target it as a foreign body. Try like hell to destroy it before—”

“All things that occurred as they should in the king consort’s case,” Vegeta cut off, still avoiding direct eye contact by focusing on the hand that stoked her middle. “At the time of discovery, the consort’s white cell count was off the charts. The parasite, as you so aptly labeled it, had attached to the bowel, and managed to survive long enough to develop its own immune system. As it cannibalized the host, it’s defenses grew stronger, while simultaneously weakening her body’s defenses.

“The physicians immediately concluded it best to remove the embryo into pod gestation, as it was clearly viable. However, Dr. Shitake vetoed the decision upon noting the growth was well past the embryonic stage. It was a fully developed fetus… of nearly twenty-nine weeks. A fully formed child, if not formed enough to survive on its own. Far too removed from the cutoff point for pod gestation. And far too large and damaging to the consort’s already taxed body to be allowed continued existence.”

“Wait,” the woman was propped on an elbow now, expression contemplative, if mortified. “How did this chick not feel this thing? A tumor that size on the bowel would be… excruciating. Not to mention, y’all can sense chi. And, she’d been at the front for weeks. Surely, she registered injuries. How did the regeneration pod not catch the fucking child growing in her abdominal cavity?”

Vegeta shrugged, and explained in a flat tone, “She was a Super Elite warrior. We are bred and trained to sustain exceedingly high levels of pain. She attributed the discomfort to some injury sustained on the battlefield, yes, but was acutely disdainful of regeneration tanks. Believed they weaken the Saiyans’ innate prolific healing abilities. Considered their use a weakness, unless past the point of consciousness. As far as registering the foreign chi, from the time its brain developed enough to achieve it—somewhere around ten weeks— the ‘parasite’ had managed to modulate its chi to that of its host, effectively masking itself.”

The prince quirked and ironically amused brow at the woman. “The little shit had an iron will to survive.”

“It fucking would’ve had to,” the woman hissed, no less abhorred, but still fascinated.

“That drive to live—,” Vegeta continued, “—that strength… it ultimately led the king’s consort to refuse the child be taken.”

He watched the woman slowly descend to brace her head on his chest. For the brief moment he glimpsed them before she shifted her face from his vantage, he saw the sadness flood the ocean of her eyes. She understood what would come next.

“The king tried to talk her out of it, of course. Reasoned another child could easily be conceived, but it was her choice. It’s always the woman’s choice, by Saiyan rite. And she would not be deterred. She believed any Saiyan strong enough to survive that doomed conception was the answer to our war with the Icejin. She believed that toxic child capable of embodying the legend of our people, of destroying our enemies.”

Another long, deep exhale into the oppressively silent room. “Shitake determined the consort’s body could not sustain the child to birth, regardless of her wishes. She was less than a month from death. But, the consort pleaded for the doctor to find a way. So, after several sleepless days of research, the doctor came to the dire conclusion that the only way for the child to survive would be to systematically deaden every part of the consort’s brain not dedicated to its sustenance.

“The king’s consort agreed with little consideration. And the official date and time of her death was noted when she was inserted in a healing pod and placed on full life support, so that machines could regulate everything but her circulatory system. As of that moment, everything that made her the prolific person she had been, ceased to exist, and she became a husk to incubate the life she valued above her own.”

As those last words vanished into the darkness, they lay in a time lapse, allowing the tale to linger about them, an aura both poignant and cleansing.

The prince felt lighter, that pressure at his chest gone.

She knew now.

She knew what was at stake.

What she had to lose.

“Is that why you and the king don’t get along?”

The question so completely ruptured the solemn mood, he was compelled to shift so that his confused expression was visible to her. “Why the hell would that have any bearing on my relationship with the king, Woman? He honored his mate’s wishes and was rewarded with a son worthy of the exalted bloodline.”

“So… why all the animosity between you two?”

The prince brought a hand to run through his hair and snorted. “I was eight, when the king declared me his heir. It could not have been more poorly timed, but the dick did it on purpose. He was pissed I’d defied him and entered Trials at five. He couldn’t abide that disrespect going unpunished. He knew I was already a target, because of my high birth. Making me heir effectively made me a trophy any warrior would shiv their own mother to possess. The difficulties of my existence, which were already daunting, redoubled.” He gave another humorless snort. “Asshole could’ve followed protocol and waited until I’d reached Commencement. But, no, he had to make things just that fucking harder for me.”

“Okay. I can understand that. You resent him for getting you roughed up in… school, or whatever.”

That made him sit up fully, shoulders tense, eyes narrowed and molten. “No,” he growled, incensed. “I fucking resent that he was right to do it!”

He brought a hand up to the bridge of his nose, working to level his rising pulse through rhythmic breathing. He felt the woman rise to match his position on the bed.

“I don’t think I understand…” her voice came soft, tentative.

“He’s always fucking right!” Both hands came to fist, white-knuckled at his sides on the bed. Fuck he wanted to hit something.

“You have no idea how fucking frustrating it is that this sadistic asshole is always right. He’s a manipulative, conniving piece of shit and the only person who’s ever had an iota of power over my life, the only being in the universe I’m forced to bow to.”

He allowed his glare to go cold, matching his tenor. “And every abuse, ever little “lesson” he imposed—fucking worked. He wanted his heir ruthless, a perfect soldier for the Empire. And fuck if that’s not what I turned out to be. No matter how hard I’ve tried to defy him through the years, he always finds the fucking upper hand. Even with this”—he jabbed an index finger at her— “even with my fucking personal life, he meddled, and he was fucking right.”

A hand came to rub roughly over his face and a deep snarl rumbled in his chest. “I never wanted any of this, Bulma,” he breathed, heatedly. “You were not part of my life equation. I was to become the strongest warrior through battle. I would not allow any distractions from that goal. But the king had to interlope, get his own way. So, I was stranded on this rock, with this incredible opportunity— which I fucking owe to him— for finding a shortcut to becoming a Super Saiyan… And you.”

He noted her eyes flash with insult, then anger, but he shouldered on, before she could interject with whatever misconception she’d concocted. “You burrowed under my fucking skin. I’ve tried for weeks to forget about you, focus on my training. I’m so close. So fucking close. I catch fleeting surges of this unfathomable power. I can taste it. Then, my focus shifts, gets sidetracked. By you. You are always in my mind, hindering my concentration. It’s become so that my body physically calls to you. And that simply cannot be. You are nothing. So fucking weak. Don’t think me unaware Shitake has you on supplements, because the child takes more than your body is capable of supplying. And it is due to arrive in a month…”

“Vegeta, I’m not your mother. Yes, this pregnancy has been…challenging. Yes, I’m on supplements. All Earth women in areas with access to such things go on them. Pregnancy takes a toll. You have something inside syphoning off what your body needs to be at its best. And, yes, I’m terrified of labor, of the unknowns of birthing a fucking half-alien. But, look at me,” she paused to place a hand to his cheek, lightly coaxing, and he conceded to lock gazes with her. After the challenging tone she’d used, his pride would abide no less.

“I’m healthy. I have a great support group of friends and a somewhat eccentric but competent obstetrician, who will do everything to make sure this kid makes it out of me just fine.”

He turned his face away, not wanting her to see whatever his expression showed as he breathed the next words. “It is a bothersome thing, your involvement in my life. You have become… intrenched in my existence. Accordingly, my existence would be… diminished by the loss of yours. No warrior should be so burdened by another. I should have killed you before I allowed such attachment.”

He heard her heave a soft laugh and felt the shift of the bed as she once again made herself what passed for comfortable in her state. A moment later, her hand came to his shoulder, softly pulling. With a huff, he settled back on the pillows and she immediately cozied up to his side, bringing a light blanket over them both. After a few moments of silence, she yawned. “Yeah, well. Your fuck-up, Highness. Deal with it.”

He scoffed, but shifted further into her, allowing her weak, steady chi combined with that of his child’s far stronger but equally steady one, to slowly lull him into lethargy.

Just before he lapsed into sleep, he heard the woman mumble, half gone herself.

“And, asshole? I love you, too.”

~~0~~

“You’re never fucking touching me again! You hear that, you motherfucking coward? Too chicken-shit to face the mess you got me in! I know you’re out there! If you try to touch me ever again, I will scour the bowels of a hundred worlds to find the material that will shear your dick right the fuck off!”

“Well, I’m glad impending motherhood has done nothing to dull the edge to that wicked tongue.”

Vegeta didn’t shift from his position, hands crossed tight at his lower back, before the wall spanning window opposite the delivery room, which offered a magnificent view of a garden waterfall.

He’d sensed the king’s chi the moment his corvette had entered Earth’s solar system—compliments to how nearly two years of intensive training had honed his chi manipulation skills.

And even a human’s limited auditory faculties wouldn’t miss the man’s heavy reinforced booted tread approach down the long hall of the medical bay’s private wing to settle a few feet behind him.

He remained stoic because, petulant as it was, he wanted to prolong the inevitable as long as possible. However, he wouldn’t afford the man the satisfaction of knowing his presence affected him, one way or another.

On an exhale, he turned swiftly, and gracefully genuflected on a knee, fist coming to his chest, eyes levelled at the carpeted floor. “I did not think you’d bother with the journey from the front, Majesty. I see the Briefs’s engine designs proofed as prolific as rumored. It has been but thirty-one-and-a-half hours since the onset—”

“At ease, First Captain,” the king interjected with that haughtiness that always incensed the prince. One he knew he’d inherited. He swiftly rose to his full height, mirror eyes coming to lock with the monarch’s. The asshole was smiling, ear to ear. “I must confess, I departed the front several months ago and have been engaging in wargames with my regiments a handful of systems over. I purposely ordered that my formations be kept from your debriefings.”

At the prince’s hitched brow, the king snorted. “It would not do for you to think your king eager, now would it? It’d go right to that overinflated ego of yours. But, I could hardly miss the birth of what will likely become the next heir to the Royal house. Shitake has kept me appraised of the child’s power level. Even before birth, he demonstrates levels well within the Super Elite profile. It is tradition for the ruling monarch to attend the birth of a potential successor. I’m disappointed at your lack of faith, Vegeta.”

_Yes, because this asshole is such a stickler for tradition._

For the sake of preventing a physical altercation—this was not the time or place--, the prince bit the inside of his cheek and refrained from voicing his thoughts.

“Fuuuuck! Get this bastard outta me already!”

Both men turned to the closed door, opposite the window, and the prince bit back a smirk. The woman had specifically designed that room with sound muffling insulation, imagining just this scenario and not wanting to deal with the humiliation caused by audio of the occasion leaking to the Earth’s media. The vocal prowess of her incensed, agonized expletives had managed to undermine even her own brilliant design.

How could he help but be impressed by that?

The prince had ordered the wing vacated of everyone, but the most vital medical staff needed—with one blaring exception the woman had demanded— and banned all recording devices. Nappa and Raditz stood sentinel at the doors of the wing with scouters calibrated to detect recording devices signals to ensure the woman attained her privacy.

“Is she truly so mad that she has chosen to forgo numbing agents?” The king’s tone was amused, contemplative, without a hint of concern.

The aloofness strummed up the prince’s spine, rankling.

“It is uncertain what effect Tuffle or Saiyan numbing agents would have on the half-breed, Sire,” he grumbled out through a clenched jaw. “The same goes for human agents. Because of this, the Briefs woman chose to forgo the medication, favoring the child’s best health to her own comfort.”

“Ah,” the king exclaimed, positively beaming as he reclined casually on the wall. His voice gained a distinctly arrogant edge. “A woman of true intellect and abnegation. Did I not tell you she would do you well as a bride?”

Fists clenching to near spasm at his back, the prince stood ramrod straight, refusing to meet the king’s eyes and grated a “Yes, Sire.” through gritted teeth.

Fuck, how he despised this man.

“Is ravaging her as delightful as that enticing body leads one to believe?”

On reflex, the prince turned outraged, round eyes on the monarch, heat suffusing his neck and cheeks.

_How fucking dare he?_

At his reaction, the king released a sharp laugh, gesticulating a hand about in an infuriatingly casual manner. “Honestly, Vegeta,” the man stated in a mocking tone. “One would imagine getting your dick wet would take the edge off that prudishness. Especially by the likes of her.”

Refusing to indulge the sick fuck (and belittle the intimacy of he and his mate’s love life), the prince turned away, bringing his arms to cross high on his chest, molars grinding.

“Come now, boy. Men speak of these things. You’ve been in the mess halls. Yours is a woman any man would covet. What harm is there in bragging?”

“Captain Navet is highly praised for her beauty and battle prowess, in her own rite,” Vegeta diverted, astutely. Not that he much preferred the king brag about his exploits with the current Ruling Royal Consort any more than he wanted to extol the details of his sex life. But anything was preferable to the route the conversation was previously taking.

“Indeed,” the king sighed, wistfully. “She is quite the price, but hardly compares to the Briefs girl. She has all but borne you a son worthy of our bloodline. For all her virtues, Navet failed at that lofty duty.”

The prince held back a wince at the veiled jab to his younger sibling, fighting to keep his expression blank. It seemed the king took every opportunity to degrade the man. Though he’d proven himself proficient the last few years at diplomacy, an art most Saiyans had no natural gift for. And had flourished in his position as the king’s personal ambassador: a position the asshole had bestowed him as a fucking _insult_.

Tarble tried so hard to gain their father’s esteem. It was an endeavor doomed to fail from his birth.

The prince found reprieve from having to comment on the king’s statement, when the door to the delivery room opened, flooding the hallway with a cacophony of shuffling feet, carts being wheeled about, and moaned, pained breaths. The sounds stymied as soon as Kakarot’s mate stepped through and allowed the door to close with a suction behind her.

Sparing a somewhat annoyed glance between the two men, the oddly Saiyan-looking female landed her dark brown eyes on the prince, and, crossing her arms at her chest, as if what she’d been tasked to do was just this side of unbearable, huffed out, “Bulma is ten centimeters dilated and fully effaced. It’s time to start pushing.”

Kakarot’s mate pointed a thumb behind her. “We planned this out, her and I, before she got like… this. When the contractions were still mild and spaced, and she was still lucid, she understood why you couldn’t be with her throughout. Understood your training took priority. But, she made it absolutely clear that you were to be in that room for the birth of your child. You’ve caused more blood and gore than anything that’s happening in there. It’ll be a walk in the park for you.”

Submerging a hitch to his lip, because really, that sounded verbatim like what his mate would say— thinking she could order him about, even by proxy—he purposely took a step forth, then hesitated, eying the smallish but obviously vicious Terran female. She narrowed her eyes right back. “Look, savage. I don’t care what you do. I’m here for my friend, who asked me to come fetch you. You’d be doing me a favor staying the hell away from both her and this kid, in all honesty.”

With an intrigued tilt to his head, the prince further scrutinized the woman, recognizing what it was that a Saiyan (even one as watered down as Kakarot) would find appealing of this irreverent wench. After a few breaths of this, he snorted, fully stepping forth toward the delivery room entrance. He heard the king shift to follow a step behind.

“Not you.”

Vegeta stopped just before the doors, stance parallel the earth woman’s and shifted his gaze to find she’d lifted a hand palm up. It hovered two feet distant from the king’s chest. He turned furrowed brows at the monarch, who focused a sneer sharp enough to slice diamond at the woman.

“You must be confused, peon. Mayhap you know not to whom you speak. But, I assure you, you will guard your tongue, or I shall have it off,” the king snarled, visibly exerting effort to tamp down his rage.

“Yeah. She was very particular about how I was to deal with you, _Majesty_.” The woman spat the title like bile, reaching into the fold of her tunic dress to pull out a small post note. “Even wrote it down for me.”

Obnoxiously clearing her throat, she went on to read:

“The Regent Consort to The Prince of All Saiyans proclaims the rite to Autonomous Agency of Motherhood, which stipulates she and only she decides who is to be present at the birth of her children. To this end, she demands the Saiyan King Vegeta be absent of the delivery room during the birth of her child. Were the king to disparage this legal rite, he shall be shamed and demoted of cast, rank and station. As is stipulated by time-honored Saiyan tradition.”

“Fuck,” Vegeta scoffed, no longer bothering with hiding his amusement. How far into his people’s archives did the woman have to dig for that gem? He wasn’t even passingly familiar with it. One glance at the king’s outraged, but quickly paling face, however, spoke of the legal validity of the disclaimer. She had the man so hard by the balls, he could sing a falsetto.

“Bulma says you are to wait in the nursery just down the hall with the coterie of point checkers and scientists you brought along to properly rank and catalogue the baby’s power level for your clan. The child will be brought there once Dr. Shitake has taken proper care of both he and Bulma. You can do your thing and be on your way, unhindered. She even asked me to escort you, so you don’t lose your way…” The woman swept an arm out, in the direction of the hallway, before swiftly stepping away from the doorway, clearly expecting the king to follow.

The monarch spared the prince a wide-eyed, smoldering glare, to which Vegeta only shrugged, still smirking, before sharply turning on a heel to follow the woman to where his mate had ordered him.

_Fucking ordered him!_

Shit, she was spectacular!

With a laugh, the prince pushed the door open, eyes immediately landing on the flushed, sweat drenched woman with legs braced on the stirrups to bring forth his son.

And damn if ever he’d seen anything more glorious in his life.

* * *

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know y'all waited a hot minute for this update. No apologies. I warned about my posting schedule pretty early on.  
> Still, I want you folks to know the reason for the wait.  
> First: My health has been a joke this year. I was in the hospital all day last Friday.  
> Second: This was LONG. It had to be. This is the second to last chapter and pretty much the climax, so I had a lot of foreshadowed stuff I had to address here. It ended up being, not just a huge information dump, but also the longest chapter to date.  
> Finally: Writing this much takes a lot of editing I simply don't have time to do.  
> Because of this, the chapter is pre-read, but not edited. We shall see when I have time to pretty it up over the next few days.
> 
> If you have stuck by this fic to this point and want to give some love, please leave a kudos. If you have thoughts and opinions, let them out in a comment. I bite, but only in the best of ways.
> 
> :O)


	9. Threat

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As he's getting used to his new role as a father, Vegeta learns Frieza is on the hunt for the dragon balls on Namek. The chase ensues.

* * *

He sensed it.

Roughly half a minute before the woman stirred at his side, and groggily (with a mumbled epithet) untangled from the sheets to make the short trek to the tiny creature, nearly inaudibly mewling a protest from the cradle in the corner of the suite.

He released an irate snort.

 _It_ had been wrenching him from his much-needed rest the last nine days—the width of time he’d condescended to resume his rightful place at his mate’s side for their nighttime respite.

If you could call it that anymore for the woman. Or, for him, for that matter.

Because _it_ , on a torturously predictable schedule, inexorably interrupted his sleep every bit as much as it did hers: the spike in the child’s chi that inevitably preempted that infuriating whining, and conversely triggered the woman’s haggard traipse to where the child ‘slept’.

Vegeta wasn’t a deep sleeper by nature.

The ‘nurture’ of Trials had only served to exacerbate this idiosyncrasy. Deep sleep in that shithole was a vulnerability no one could afford. His subsequent years of military service served to hair-trigger his wakefulness even further.

It wasn’t that he was incapable of recuperative rest. He wasn’t a narcolept or an insomniac. His brain achieved REM easily enough. It simply just as readily disengaged from it, thrusting him back into abrupt consciousness with no regard for his wishes. Or those of his over-taxed biology’s restorative requirements.

For this reason, understandably, the insufferable nightly spike in the brat’s chi triggered one of his own. Which, in turn, heightened the child’s distress. That, unwittingly, forced a hastening of the woman’s response and tested that bit more the ever-fraying strands of her nerves.

The situation was shit all around.

But, they were stuck.

Shitake had no explanation for how his and his son’s energies had instantly become synced when in close proximity from the moment of his birth, beyond the mantra, “He’s a half-breed, Highness. Uncharted waters.”

Supremely unhelpful in times as these.

Over the last nine days, lying awake at one in the morning, he’d lost track of the myriad and colorful machinations for the good doctor’s death his imagination provided.

“Shhh, sweetie. Mommy’s here. You’re getting fed,” the woman cooed softly, lifting the wriggling infant from his crib to softly nuzzle her cheek to his.

Instantly, both the boy’s and Vegeta’s chi mellowed. Ice water doused over live coals.

As had become norm, his muscles—always tensed in battle readiness at the chi spike—subconsciously relaxed back into the pliable firmness of the mattress.

Without realizing it, he’d become fascinated by how his little woman provided sustenance for their child.

Even in her wary state, she propped her pillows against the headboard and settled back onto the bed, back properly cushioned. In the same motion, a delicate hand swept across the gentle slope of her clavicle, taking with it the strap of her cotton night dress, exposing the hefty swell of her breast, nipple engorged. Within a breath, the child snuggled deeper into her, suckling at his meal with relish.

Vegeta would never (could never) put to words the wash of unbridled contentment that saturated his being at witnessing this. Not fully aware of the act, he too found himself propped on the headboard, flush so close to the woman that his shoulder wedged between hers and the pillows and his chin rested right up against the soft curve of her neck. He inhaled deeply of her spice-floral-pheromone musk, nose rustling the fine down just behind her ear. The act elicited an unwitting shiver from her and painted the patch of flesh in minuscule bumps. A primal, animal thing in him could not help but roam his bared teeth over them.

“Someone needs to get laid,” came the woman’s breathy, mock nonchalant voice in the near darkness.

Something between a moan and a growl rumbled deep in his throat in response.

Loath as he was to admit to it— to admit to _any_ weakness or need— his body ached for her. It had been fifty-three days since the birth of his son. It was six days before the onset of labor since he and his mate had engaged in any form of carnality. She had suffered unending back pains the few days prior to the birth, which Shitake now knew had been the very start of her labor.

Between the woman’s heightened distress pre-delivery, the consequent eight days of heavy menstruation, and the forty-day quarantine Shitake had imposed for proper healing, Vegeta had found his physiological urges taking a decided back seat to an unexpected, irrational concern for the welfare of his mate.

Unwilling and unequipped to compartmentalize this new, foreign sensation, he’d rounded his men and set off for drills in the dessert, immediately following the departure of the King. Four weeks in, he’d been forced back to the compound by his forces’ (and his, if he were honest with himself) need for the regeneration tanks.

Upon returning, he’d learned his mate now resided in the wing she’d had built for their use on the western face of the residential compound. Although attached to the main building by a corridor, the new structure boasted it’s own kitchen, living area and set of suites for both guests and permanent residents. And a fully equipped nursery.

Vegeta, a creature of routine, had at first taken to sleeping in his old, familiar suite within the main residential building.

A couple of nights in, he decided the self-segregation was cowardly and beneath his pride.

Therefore, without a word, nine nights ago, he had walked into the new master suite of the west wing compound close to eleven at night, disrobed, and proceeded to take a long shower in the massive en-suite. Then, he’d made a quick visit to the exact replica of the dresser chest in his former room, extracted a pair of comfortable sweat pants, made a quick sweep of the bedroom, and plopped into his usual side of the now larger bed, wrists crossed behind his head on the pillow.

After a few minutes of nothing but the breathing of three in the silent space, the woman, who had been feigning sleep throughout his exploration, turned. She scooted close to him, and wrapped a hand loosely about his middle.

“I need you to run with me tomorrow. The breast feeding helped a lot with the baby weight, but I need some serious toning up. Maybe you can run me through some basic calisthenics? I’m sure you remember whatever four-year-olds do on Sadala. I’m confident I can handle that.”

He’d snorted a, “Doubtful”, which prompted her to scoff.

“Dude, Shitake says at the rate the baby’s developing, I can only breast feed directly another month. After that, I can only pump. Even then, it will have to be supplemented with soft solids. You bastards are born with _teeth_ , and the digestive tracts of goats. This kid’s dentistry, thankfully, is a lot less developed by Saiyan standards, but off the charts for a human infant. How do you think it feels to have ten stubby bones grind into your nipples thirty minutes at a time, four times a day? Now, I took a six-month maternity leave, so I can focus on properly puzzling out the best way to nurture _your_ child. I’m fat and bored out of my mind. If you don’t help me get some exercise and a couple hours’ break from this kid, I’ll ask Yamcha to come stay a few months to get me on track.”

He’d choked back a snarl. The gall of the woman, thinking she could extort the regent prince of all Saiyans into capitulating to her whim by tossing that simpering weakling’s name at him.

…

They were running together just after dawn the following morning. A good soldier picked his battles wisely.

Presently, he pressed ever closer to her, languidly running his mouth over every inch of skin within reach, consciously avoiding any interruption to his child’s feeding, which had shifted from left breast to right. The boy’s chi had been escalating the last few minutes, reacting to his frustration. He still hungered and the source was quickly depleting.

Finally, with a throaty sigh and a wince, the woman softly pried an index finger between her nipple and the infant’s still suckling mouth, breaking the contact and eliciting a keening groan of protest from the child still sucking at the finger. One-handed she rocked the increasingly fretful infant and repositioned the strap of her nightie back on her shoulder, covering her breast.

Vegeta found himself choking back a sound very reminiscent to the one the child had made seconds before, and immediately felt heat rise to his neck.

He was a fucking adult.

And a Saiyan.

And a prince.

He would not be reduced to whimpering, like a starving, slum alley mutt.

The woman sat up and cocked an eyebrow his way. Reading either his clouding aura or the scowl he was certain was so prominent it was likely visible in the poor moonlight filtering through the balcony doors, she shifted the child to her other arm and bent down to crush her mouth to his.

The kiss wasn’t chaste, but it wasn’t nearly as long or deep as his body craved. When she pulled back, he had to white knuckle the sheets to keep his hand from tangling in her mussed blue mane to bring her back for a longer, deeper pull.

But, the boy was softly whimpering now, and he would not begrudge his woman her priorities. That did not keep the furrow from appearing between his brows as she graced him with a tired, smile.

“Mom deboned and finely minced half a boiled turkey for him last night. She left it in our fridge. Hopefully, it will be enough to get him to sleep the rest of the night…”

She got to her feet and, after a moment of consideration, bent over and placed the still floundering child on his bare stomach. Vegeta watched this act of impudence, eyes round and vexed.

He gawked a handful of breaths at the infant, struggling to brace himself on chubby arms to return a strikingly familiar glare. Then, shifted his what-the-fuck glare on the woman.

Her smile now stretched wide and, even in the poorly lit room, sparked the cerulean of her eyes. “He’s yours too, Vegeta. I work faster with two hands. Watch him and I’ll be back in a few minutes with more food.”

He grabbed the infant one-handed under his paunchy little belly, ready to outstretch him back at his mother, when the woman’s voice curtailed the motion.

“Do this for me and tomorrow, after Mom comes over to watch trunks in the morning, instead of our run, I will take you to the gravity room and show you just how much this weak little Earthen can make a Saiyan prince sweat.”

She pounced back on the bed, on all fours, and slowly crawled closer so that her mouth ghosted over his. “I’ll even wager I can do it with no hands, Highness,” she husked across his lips, before jerking back with a Chesire grin. She lurched off the bed and toward the door, before the blood pooling at his groin could cycle back to his brain and engage his motor function enough to make a grab for her.

Instead, he was left snarling at her retreating form until she was gone, then turned the same bared teeth on the boy on his stomach. The child tilted his head slightly, and, after a moment, mimicked the gesture back, if it was mostly gums with tiny pearly protrusions. Then, the expression fell, and he was starting to whimper again.

“Stop it,” Vegeta ordered firmly, causing the boy to clam up, tiny full bottom lip, so much like his own, jutting out in a pout.

His eyes narrowed at the child’s easy acquiescence, mind churning.

Could it be possible a halfbreed had inherited that aspect of Saiyan physiology?

Although his race, as a whole, was admittedly not gifted with the intellectual proficiency of its contemporaries, they did possess an idiosyncrasy no other catalogued species could laud: their frontal lobe—specifically the limbic system and prefontal cortex— were not only fully developed, but acutely active at the onset of the fetal stage.

This peculiarity was crucial to their recognizance and assimilation of nearly all the worlds comprising the empire. They seeded words of interest with their third-class newborns.

The children were placed in deep stasis, slowing their metabolism to near death. This allowed them to subsist for years if need be, on a simple cocktail of proteins, peptides and carbs, drip fed to them through the pod’s life-support umbillicals, which also removed and recycled waste.

As they travelled, the pod’s neural link provided their heightened brains instructions on everything they would need to adapt and survive the environment of their assigned planets, as well as instructions on how best to remain hidden from the populace, avoid exposure to the planet’s moon(s), and what information they were to gather and relay to Sadala, so that the king and his councilors could determine the planet’s worth.

All child scouts were implanted with a subconscious urgency to return to their home planet at the age of seven to attend Trials, at which time they were fully debriefed. 

The system had worked efficiently for centuries. Cases such as Kakarot’s were rare exceptions. Saiyans, even third-class toddlers, were notoriously hard to kill. And, their training provided all skills needed to fend for themselves. Up to the start of the Icejin war, scientists kept diligent tabs on all scouts. But, as the war escalated and extended, those resources had to be redirected, and it became impossible to track the children as efficiently.

Another reason to finish this damned war. 

With an exhale, and a theory to test, Vegeta sat up straighter and brought a hand to the child’s middle, forcing him into a sitting position. As soon as his hand left, the boy began drifting forward, nearly plopping on his face against his father’s chest.

“No,” Vegeta snapped. Catching the child before he tumbled. He maneuvered the infant’s chubby thighs wider apart and brought both his chunky arms before him, stubby fingered hands spread.

“Like this.”

The boy studied with uncharacteristic keenness his tiny hands on the hard plane of muscles, rising and falling with his father’s breaths, focusing, before looking back up with eyes near mirrors to his own, were it not for inheriting his mother’s coloring.

Slowly, Vegeta removed the hand bracing the child upright, observing as the tiny limbs trembled to keep the boy aloft. He began to keen from the effort.

“Stop that whining,” Vegeta snapped, and the boy again muffled his descent, big eyes watering. “No tears. You do not whimper like a wounded animal. You are perfectly capable of holding yourself up. You are perfectly capable of waiting for your meal without groveling. You are a prince of your people. You will conduct yourself as such.”

The boy’s expression shifted from distress to fascination, and he wriggled a bit, trying to firm his tenuous grip on the new position he’d been forced into.

“Good.” Vegeta allowed himself a grin, eyes calculating. “You _can_ understand speech. So, you’re not entirely different from a full new born Saiyan.”

Again, that slight tilt of the boy’s head: a mannerism inherited from his mother. Vegeta knew that one like the back of his hand.

“You need to sleep from when it goes dark until it becomes light out that window.” He gestured his head toward the balcony.

The boy’s features twisted into a scowl and he allowed his tiny arms to give, belly-flopping with a huff, head still lifted to stare at his father.

With a roll of his eyes and a stern thinning to his mouth, Vegeta quickly lifted the boy into the previous position. He infused just a tiny bit of chi into the hand that gripped the boy’s middle, just enough heat to be uncomfortable to such a tiny thing. This time, when the boy whimpered, it was from that tiny jolt of pain. Vegeta found that familiar glare directed at him and had to bite back a scoff.

The kid was a stubborn little shit. It would serve him well.

“Sneer as you wish. Disobedience will be met with discipline. That is our way. Hunger is not the worst condition you could suffer, but I will ensure you do not endure it as long as you sleep through the night. I’m reasonable. At the times of the year where nights grow long, I will instruct your mother to extend your bed time as much as reasonable and feed you the largest meal she can manage before your rest. It is important to her, that she feed you from her reserves as long as possible. She believes it is important to the proper development of whatever part of you is human.”

The infant continued watching him, rivetted. Vegeta gave a one shouldered shrug. “It may well be important for you that she do this. Hell if I know. Anyhow, you will receive a larger meal upon awakening _in the morning_. Your mother is exhausted. She requires proper rest, as do you to grow to your promised potential. To that end, this meal you will receive tonight will be the last at this ungodly hour. You will sleep through the rest of the night. And tomorrow night. And the next. You will demonstrate the restraint expected of a Saiyan prince.”

The boy’s soft, rounded face went from apt attentiveness to resigned weariness, and he sprawled back down onto his belly, fist coming to his mouth to suckle. His chi mellowed, and Vegeta knew they had come to an understanding.

As the child’s breathing continued to slow, Vegeta reached a hand out to stroke the boy’s back, a gesture he’d often seen the woman perform. The infant sighed in response and further snuggled into the dip of his father’s sternum.

Satisfied, Vegeta allowed the soft breathing to lull him into a lethargy until the woman crept back into the room with a bowl of mush emitting a surprisingly rousing aroma.

She stopped short at the site of the sleeping child sprawled on his stomach.

“You got him to sleep?”

Vegeta scoffed, and lifted off the bed, bracing the tiny child to himself as he walked back to the crib and deposited him in it as gently as he could manage.

The woman still stood by the bed, mouth agape, when he turned back to her. With a half slash grin, he moved toward her and took the bowl from her slacked fingers. She stared at him, unbelieving. “Go back to bed, Woman.”

“But—” she tried, but his mouth on hers stifled the protest. He made it short, aware of her exhaustion.

“Go back to bed. I will take this back down to the kitchen… or eat it. Either way, your assistance is no longer required.”

She narrowed her eyes at him, still not trusting, but slowly lowered herself back into bed and shifted the covers about her. She tried to keep that distrustful look on him as he backed away toward the door, but her body betrayed her with a long yawn and she was out by the time he made it to the receiving area of the suite. Her nearly imperceptible chi, and light snores told him so.

He allowed himself a smirk as he took a spoonful of the curiously delicious mush, making his way to the kitchen, ruminating the one-sided conversation with his son and the revelations it had uprooted. Something about the exchange nagged at the back of his mind.

It was once he’d made it to the kitchen to deposit the now empty bowl in the sink for the cleaning bots to handle, that it hit him.

His six-week-old son had followed the entire conversation.

And every word had been spoken in the native Saiyan tongue.

~~0~~

“It could be genetic memory,” the woman suddenly blurted, out of breath. Absently, she adjusted the harness contraption about her chest holding their son. The boy giggled and burbled rapturously, even as every step of the woman’s jaunt bounced him about. His stubby legs flailed frenetically, as if trying to mimic the motions of his father’s gait.

The prince would not be surprised if the little shit ran before he walked.

After their vigorous romp in his gravity room at dawn, and a very rewarding joint shower in their suite’s bathroom, he’d figured the woman would want nothing more than to catch up on some sleep. He was ready to marshal his men for drills, when she stepped out of the walk-in, fully decked in her running gear and sneakers.

With a brisk clap of her hands, she brandished a brilliant smile and brimmed, “Well, now that we got the old blood flowing, let’s get on with that run, shall we.”

More carnally and psychologically sated than he’d been in weeks, he was more than willing to comply. He was thronging with pent adrenaline.

A run with her, he knew, would do little to abate it, but would serve well enough as warm up for his day of real training back in the gravity chamber.

So, they collected their child from his grandmother and took to the familiar tree-strewed trails veining the massive Capsule Corp. grounds.

Once they’d established a pace she could easily sustain, he’d brought up the interaction with the boy he’d had the previous night and she’d gone stonily silent, introspective. The intense expression she wore was exceedingly familiar. And eerily similar to that of their boy last night as he’d processed the instructions provided.

She’d gone silent so long, her sudden response on the subject left him off-kilter.

“What?”

Her face turned to him suddenly, mechanically, eyes round as if surprised he was still there, running alongside her. This tended to happen when she lost herself in her own thoughts.

“Genetic memory,” she elaborated, voice edging with that lilt of intellectuality it gained when she explained scientific concepts. “Many insects on this planet have it. Basically, progeny is born knowing whatever its forebearer learned in its lifetime. Usually, where it stood in the hive hierarchy, where to find food… that sort of thing. It stands to reason that Saiyans, who possess such heightened prefontal cortices, would retain some portion of genetic memory from their progenitors. Trunks likely knows saiyanese because the language is imprinted in his genes.”

“He didn’t inherit an innate understanding of _your_ language,” the prince pointed out, observantly. “For the most part, I’m… aware of his responses. He doesn’t respond to the meaning of your words, just the emotions you infuse them with. Which is decidedly _not_ a Saiyan trait. Saiyan children have no use of such emotional attachment to their parents.”

“Truuuue,” she conceded, mind still whirling. “But, humans have no genetic memory to pass on. It makes sense he would have to learn my language the old-fashioned way. As for his emotional responses—” she shrugged, pressing a kiss to the sparse lilac fuss atop the child’s head, instantly mellowing his chi with a contentment that nearly made Vegeta mewl. He really needed to figure out how to sever this bizarre connection to the child.

“—he’s as much human as Saiyan, so all his responses are unique to him… and maybe Gohan. They’re the only two hybrids.”

“I’ve never heard of this ‘genetic memory’,” the prince scoffed. “You would think our scientists would have figured it out centuries ago.”

“How?” Bulma countered. “I’ve studied your medical files going back generations. As far as I’ve learned, humans are the first species saiyans have encountered genetically similar enough to interbreed with. You can’t even breed with tuffles, and you share the same planet. You incubate infants in machines that feed knowledge directly to their limbic system from eight weeks on. Any genetic memory would be disguised by the implanted knowledge. How would your scientists know the difference? Trunks proves it’s a part of your physiology. Gohan doesn’t know of your language, because his father’s brain contusion caused him to forget it. But, I’m sure he’d pick it right up if he heard it. Actually, I’m pretty sure anything Gohan knows is a product of Chi-chi’s genes.”

He arched an amused brow at her.

She shrugged. “He’s my best friend, but he can barely read, and that took years of effort on my part. He will not be splitting the atom any time soon. Not even sure how Chi-chi got him to breed her. He married her because he thought marriage was a type of foo—”

She broke off as Nappa and Radditz landed on the path a few feet before them, the latter landing so ponderously the ground shook.

Both men immediately dropped to a knee, fist coming to their chests, heads bowed. “Apologies, Sire,” Nappa’s deep voice rumbled, deferentially. “A two-person corvette, Saiyan, Elysium class, has just entered the solar system. The craft is cruising at top speed—” Nappa spared an impressed look at his mistress— “The hyperengines Dr. Briefs’s outfitted these smaller vessels with will have it in Earth orbit in thirty minutes. They have requested a bypass of implanting the oozaru shield, with the excuse that every moment is crucial. They bring a missive directly from His Majesty.”

Vegeta crossed his arms high on his chest, frowning down at his men. After ordering them at ease, he reminded them that Earth’s protocols on the shields were the king’s mandate, no exceptions. They were meant to protect the citizenry.

“I understand, Sire,” Nappa continued, shifting uncomfortably, which clued Vegeta in on how ill-at-ease his commander truly was. Nappa rarely squirmed. “However, the corvette pilot provided the Royal security codes…for the king’s personal emissary. We confirmed twice. They are who they say they are and they are adamant they speak to you immediately. The information cannot be transmitted. The king made it clear it is to be delivered in person to you, Sire.”

Slowly, Vegeta’s head bobbed once, his voice a monotone command as he stated, “Fine. The moon is waning. It won’t be full for some weeks. We will let the corvette land and speak to the king’s ambassador.”

He started walking off, in the direction of the landing docks, throwing over his shoulder at both his mate and his men, “We must show proper respect and not leave the prince waiting.”   

~~0~~

“You are looking strong, brother!” the king’s emissary shouted, hopping out of the ship the moment the cockpit hatch fully lifted. A muscled, tall female with wild bangs and dark hair braided down her back to her heals followed close behind.

The emissary, uncharacteristically short and somewhat scrawny for a saiyan, came to stand before Vegeta and bowed to a knee, as did his companion.

At Vegeta’s command, the man rose and placed his hands on the prince’s shoulders, his smile wide and dark eyes brimming with an affection any other of their race would be remised to display so publicly.

Most considered Prince Tarble an emotionally erratic fool. Vegeta had always considered him foolishly brave. And stubborn. Never willing to bend to the expectations of his own people.

Admirable trait, indeed.

Vegeta deigned to bestow a crooked grin in response. “It has been a spell, runt.”

Prince Tarble snorted, eyes tracking to Bulma, standing a step behind and to the left of the prince. His eyes traced a quick appraisal, his smile never wavering.

“And this must be our Regent Consort! The king will not stop extolling your beauty, my lady.” He bowed his head differentially, causing him to look down into her arms and gasp. “And this must be the new heir-apparent,” the young man all but squealed, suddenly taking the giggling baby in his hands and lifting him into the air. The baby did squeal in delight, tiny arms flailing.

“He’s strong brother. I will be honored to call him our king one day… if you so choose to declare him your heir, of course.”

He deposited the gibbering child back into his mother’s arms. She, for her part, shot Vegeta a questioning look. “Trunks isn’t already your heir?”

“Of course not,” Prince Tarble jibbered with a chortle. “Saiyans will only follow strength of the highest echelon. The child has to prove his strength in Trials before he is deigned worthy of being heir. Even then, if one of his younger siblings shows greater potential, the king can defer naming his heir until all his children have completed Trials.”

“Younger siblings?” The woman asked, eyes not leaving her husband. After a spell, her icy blue gaze shifted back to the emissary, shrewd. “How many heir-apparent candidates is the king expected to produce… say, hypothetically.”

Prince Tarble shrugged, offhandedly. “As many as the Royal couple can manage. Ideally, the children are all of considerable strength. This breeds competition to win favor with the king. He chooses the strongest as heir.” Another shrug. “That was not much of an issue for us. My father named his eldest the heir the moment I came out of incubation and ranged only a First-Class. Nothing compared to a Super Elite. I sealed my fate when I was demoted to third-class at seven. And he nearly disowned me when I married in the same lower clan.” He gestured with a thumb at the statuesque woman flanking him.

“Our two-year-old tested as second-class, and we have twin girls incubating. Seven months in. But, doctors are not hopeful they’ll be much stronger than their big sister. Trust me, Mistress, my line is no threat to the ascension of your children.”

Bulma stared at the man, mouth working, but no words emerging. After several tries, she managed to get out what was likely the least pertinent question.

“You married your personal guard?”

The woman at the prince’s back spoke for the first time, voice sonorous and lilting for such a large person. “My family has served as Royal Guard for thirteen generations. It is the highest honor a third-class could hope for, protecting the Royal family. Guards are always third-class. We are the most expendable.”

Bulma’s expression went from awed confusion to disgust. Her voice came an outraged indictment. “You’re _expendable_?”

The woman remained entirely impassive but tilted her head in curiosity. Her reply was clinical, detached. “Our clan is the most numerous, and notoriously, the most virile. We are many and reproduce in larger numbers than any other clan. Our expendability is a matter of practicality. Numbers. We are honored to die in service to our people.”

The woman’s mouth snapped shut, mind visibly racing. Vegeta could see her inner struggle: human sensibilities colliding with blunt, empirical logic. It actually left her speechless.

 _There_ was a change.

“I’m sorry to cut the introductions short, Prince Vegeta,” Tarble spoke up again. “But we are here to convey a message of great urgency from the king.”

For the first time since his arrival, his expression went deathly morose, his voice lowering an octave.

“Frieza personally ran the blockade at the Septaurian sector. Used EMP’s, decimated hundreds of vessels, killed tens of thousands. He’s making a run for a planet at the edge of the Omnus galaxy.”

“That’s suicide,” Radditz spoke up from the prince’s entourage, “We have a legion within an AU of Septuarian. Our ships are faster than his. We can chase him down easily.”

“Normally, that would be true”, Tarble agreed. “However, Frieza made this incursion over a month ago.”

“What?” Vegeta nearly yelled. “Our space beacons would have detected—”

Tarble shook his head. “The beacons in that sector were hacked to relay information from three years ago. We would never have known it happened, were it not for the lizard himself sending a private communique to the king, via a neutral planet mercenary. It was a hologlobe.”

Tarble took a hard swallow. “In the holo, Frieza showed Science Minister Morrell and his entire family: his wife, his seven children, his three grandchildren. Someone must have leaked their location when vacationing on T’ber Four and abducted them. He methodically tortured every one of them before him, until he got to his youngest grandson. Morrell… he didn’t give up anything until his two-year-old grandson was screaming with nails in his eyes. And then, he only offered what he believed most innocuous. Frieza still murdered the child. Then decapitated the minister.”

“What did Morrell tell him?” Vegeta’s voice was sharp as diamonds, lethal.

Tarble now looked terrified, his voice a hoarse near whisper.

“He told them the Dragon Balls weren’t a myth. That there was a set here on Earth.”

The prince looked confused. “This galaxy is millions of lightyears away from Omnus. Why is Frieza heading there a threat? He’s chasing a bad lead.”

“No, he’s not, Vegeta. Frieza has spent years studying rumors of these artifacts, tracking their anthropology. Once he had confirmation they existed, he determined the orbs are not native to this world. They were brought here by an alien species, likely eons ago. But, the species who created them is nowhere near here.”

Vegeta braced for the blow he knew awaited in the younger prince’s next declaration.

“Vegeta… Frieza wants to wish for immortality. The orbs can grant it. So… he’s making a mad dash for a planet called Namek.

~~0~~

Prince Vegeta stood on the launch pad, surrounded by his personal regiment of warriors, facing off with the handful of Earth’s ‘Elite Force’, and forcing back a roll of his eyes.

All but two were unimpressive, barely the power levels of third-class. But, two stood apart.

One was as tall as Nappa, muscled, with skin the color of Spring grass, pointed ears and a scowl that could rival any Saiyan’s.

A Namekian.

Their insider on this rock. His ancestor, as it turned out, had recently unlocked a long-submerged memory of coming to Earth from far off-world as a very young child. Using gifts unique to a rare few of their species, he’d been the one to create this planet’s set of seven orbs.

His progeny, the green man before him— Piccolo— had grudgingly agreed to join them on this quest, understanding that, were Frieza to make it to his planet, his species would be wiped of the face of existence. And, though he’d never met another of his kind, excepting the ancient being who served as overseer to this planet, and considered Earth his domain, he felt an innate responsibility to prevent the genocide of his species and the very likely obliteration of his home world.

The enemy of my enemy, and all that.

The other was Vegta’s own rival: Kakarot, son of First Commander Bardock.

Newly arrived from nearly two years of training in another dimension with a reportedly unequaled master. The clown was smiling broadly at everyone, even the Namekian, who regarded him with unveiled contempt. Apparently, there was history and bad blood there. Though, judging by that shit-eating grin and vacuous dark eyes, the idiot seemed oblivious to it.

The prince had been equal parts surprised and relieved that Kakarot had not attained the level of the Legendary, either. He’d mumbled something daft about it _feeling close_ , but he thought it could just as easily be his rumbling stomach. Then, he’d rubbed at the offending organ, pouting.

It took more equanimity than Vegeta believed he’d attained over a lifetime of discipline to keep from blasting a whole through the moron.

The congregation stood arranged around a pedestal table one of his mate’s lackeys had procured from the research wing, under the shadow of three hulking spaceships: the landed cruiser that had maintained stationary orbit over Earth for close to a year, his gravity ship, and a smaller cruiser. Techs buzzed about, preparing all three for deep space travel.  They all watched the holoprojected briefing data Prince Tarble brought with him, listening to the younger prince.

He was explaining how this assault had been meticulously coordinated, planned months in advance. Frieza had used neutral planet mercenaries to hack specific space beacons, so that his movements would not be discovered, allowing him weeks of head start to Namek.

He’d also strategically inundated the comm beacons between Earth and its closest Empirial outpost with noise, to muddle any communiques the king could send. That was why Tarble was here. He had been overseeing mining operations on a planetoid a couple thousand AU from Earth’s nearest outpost, when the king reached out to have him alert Prince Vegeta of the situation. The king ordered strict radio silence until Tarble could deliver the message personally, as the king had no way of knowing which relays had been compromised by Icejin hackers.

The assault on Septuarian, too, was not arbitrary. Frieza chose it specifically because he knew the king’s personal legion was the closest to the post and would therefore be swiftest to give chase. The speculation was that, once immortality was his, Frieza would decimate the Saiyan fleet and execute the king, declaring a swift victory for the Icejin in this generations long conflict.

Even knowing this, as Frieza expected, the king was now trailing the tyrant to Namek. However, though the Saiyan fleet had far superior speed, the subterfuge was successful in allowing Frieza the head start he’d need to beat them by at minimum half a day.

“That’s why King Vegeta thought it so important that our forces here, reinforce the battle at Namek,” Tarble began his closing statement. “At this rotation, Earth is much closer to Namek than the king’s fleet. Thanks to Dr. Briefs’s hyperengines, if we leave immediately, we can reach Namek in ten days. Our last data puts Frieza closer to nine and a half days out. The king is hoping to push the engines to burnout the last twenty-four hours. It will make it a one-way ticket, but the burn will allow them to intercept Frieza’s force just as they breach the Namekian solar system. The ensuing space battle should delay Frieza from making landfall the extra day it will take for us to arrive.”

He paused to take a long breath and look all the warriors surrounding him in the eye. “I cannot overstate the importance of us not allowing Frieza to set foot on Namek. No one has been able to go toe-to-toe with an Icejin blood member in two generations. If Frieza lands, we are all lost.”

“Fair enough,” Vegeta snorted, then in a louder cadence. “Alright, let’s file in. Nappa, you will command our regiment in our freighter. The Earthlings will all fit in the starwing, and I will depart on Capsule II. We will keep to lateral formation during travel, no more than fifty clicks between vessels—”

“I wanna go on the gravity doohickey.”

All eyes swerved to Kakarot, who rubbed the back of his head, blushing at the sudden influx of attention. “Well…I can feel from here how strong one of those helped Vegeta get. I could only do one-hundred times Earth gravity on King Kai’s place. Imagine what I can do training at five times that for ten days.”

“I’m not covering a fucking yard, breathing the same recycled air as your third-class, halfwit, ass—” Vegeta cut off as his mate placed a soft hand to his chest, not disrespectful, just placating. Her eyes were round and pleading before she turned back to the idiot.

“Goku, I understand this bizarre drive to get stronger, but Capsule II is Prince Vegeta’s personal ship. I know you don’t remember, but you are one of his subjects. You agreed to be a soldier for your people. You have to do as he commands.”

The wild haired Saiyan’s expression fell for a second before lighting right back up. “Then give me another one, Bulma! I know you. You’re always working on upgrades to your stuff. There must be another one laying around here, somewhere. Please let me borrow it, just this once. I’ll bring it back. Pinky swear.”

Vegeta was a breath from ordering his troops to hog tie and carry the buffoon into the starwing, when he caught the woman rubbing the bridge of her nose with the one hand not carrying their son against her hip. He was as surprised as everyone else about them, when the next words flew from her lips.

“It’s an untested prototype, Goku. It’s not space-worthy. Not even fueled. It would take me, Daddy and a host of techs at least ten hours to have it ready to fly. You’d be hours late. Too late to help. You need to go on the starwing.”

Kakarot seemed to ponder this for a moment before heaving a long sigh and shrugging. “I’m willing to take my chances.”

“Goku, please understand,” the woman tried again, in that inflection Vegeta often heard her use when speaking to their infant.

“I get it Bulma,” Kakarot argued. “I’m late, and I may be useless in the fight. But, if Frieza is as strong as everyone says, I may be useless to the fight, regardless. Unless I can become much stronger real fast.”

Vegeta stared, amazed that the imbecile’s words actually registered as logical. He shook his head absently, reasoning he might have suffered a recent mild aneurism. He did take blows to the head on a disturbingly consistent basis.

But, then the woman sighed, shoulders drooping. “Fine, Goku, run to the house and get Daddy. Ask him to arrange the alpha team at the hangar. I’ll meet you there in a few minutes.”

In a flash, Kakarot was off, a single twirling dust devil left occupying the patch of concrete he’d been appropriating.

Now Vegeta did roll his eyes and in his most authoritative voice, repeated his command for the troops to get loaded and launched.

He stood fast to his post, making sure everyone followed his orders. He would be the last to board his ship, once all the others had deployed.

His mate stood by his side silent until the last of the soldiers had boarded and the ramps were lifting.

She turned to face him, eyes searing. “None of that ‘with your shield or on it shit’, Highness. Your ass needs to stay alive. As I hear it, I’m supposed to squeeze out a few more half heathens, or you won’t have a proper batch to pit against each other for your favor. That’d be a damned shame.”

He couldn’t help the hike to the corner of his mouth. “Considering any child you birth will be so desperate, suffering seven years on this rock, that they’ll be eager for the ten awaiting in Trials, I doubt any will be worthy of being my heir. This planet is soft.”

A perfectly curved, blue eyebrow hiked high on her pale brow, and she bestowed the most enigmatic, challenging smile he’d seen on her beautiful face to date. “The seed of these loins will slaughter the seed of any Saiyan bitch on Sadala. Mark that. I already almost feel sorry for the children that come up against my brood.”

…

“Almost.”

She punctuated her point by pressing her mouth to his, hard, unrelenting, deep. They both allowed the kiss to linger longer than was wise. So long that, as they pulled apart, their hair was whipped about by the launching of the vessels.

“I’ll be waiting for you, when you get home,” she whispered over his lips.

“My people are my home. Sadala is my home. I am prince of all Saiyans. I will do as my duty demands.”

Her smile grew broader, even as apprehension flicked across the ocean of her eyes. And Vegeta stared, committing that magnificent vision to memory.

Both had no more words as he made the solitary trip his ship, and boarded.

It wasn’t until she was standing, watching the trail of his launch, that she breathed her last words for the benefit of her son and the wind.

“Whatever, you Royal asshole. I’ll be waiting when you get home.”

* * *

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What can I say about waiting five months to update? Well, if any of y'all have an enemy, but don't want to wish death upon them, wishing them my health would be cruel enough alternative.  
> I'm not even getting into it, but it is nothing short of a godsend that I had the physical and emotional strength to write the last 5000 words of this and post. This is the last chapter. Next comes the epilogue, which I hope to write before this year ends, but make no promises.  
> As always, pre-read but not betaed, and barely edited because it's bloody long! So, if you find any mistakes, by all means, point them out. I will correct.
> 
> If you've stuck along for the ride and want to leave a kudos, it shall be cherished. All comments and critiques are welcome, as well. Even flames. We learn from our failures more than from our successes.
> 
> Hope to write the epilogue for y'all soon.
> 
> :O)


	10. Epilogue: Reflections

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As he prepares to make his way back to Bulma and his son, Vegeta reflects on the recent events that have incontrovertibly altered his life.

* * *

“Well, you look like shit—” the woman quipped the moment the comm link connected, brandishing that Cheshire grin he’d always mused secreted the many innovations her fiendish mind had exhumed over years of research.

He frowned and tisked, unwilling to indulge her baiting.

Besides, he was sure he _did_ look like shit.

Went right along with _feeling_ like shit. Though, he’d be loath to concede to it aloud.

He was exhausted. Not from the endless battles and scrimmages he’d been privy to the last ten months.

He’d thrived on those.

No. This fatigue went soul deep, stemming from being forced into a position where he had to be ‘on’ at all times, even during what few sleep hours his overtaxed regimen allowed.

He had to be the paragon of resilience, of strength, of never-fading hope for his empire.

All without benefit of the respite he’d only ever experienced in the cradle of her bare, silken flesh.

The bald truth of it, were his pride to allow such an admission, was that quiet moments like these—with her smiling, or snarking indolence at the other end of a commlink from legion lightyears away—, were the only reason he’d managed to salvage what few vestiges of sanity he could claim.

When the blue of her eyes sparked like that, he could almost forget…

Almost.

But, memory was a queer, fickle thing. The harder one tried to force something from one’s mind, the brighter the recollection seemed to blossom in the forefront of their thoughts.

Like now, beholding his little woman, bedecked in her nightgown, huddled on their bed with pillows all about her, listening to her prattle something idle about Kakarot finally finding his way through the cosmos to Earth. Suffering through the explanation that, apparently, the clown had acquired some amazing technique from an alien species he’d come across. He’d also acquired an equally impressive virus that was incubating in the third-class’s heart, according to her upgraded recuperation tanks. So, his cadre of friends were planning to backtrack the flight path from the pod he’d used to find the planet the pathogen originated from, hoping to source an antidote before the bug became active...

Blah, blah, blah…

Vegeta tried to follow her mile-a-minute anecdote. He relished how animated her expressions, the flailing of her hands, how her brows furrowed when she concentrated, the nearly imperceptible dip on one cheek when she laughed.

However, try as he might, he found his weary mind unwittingly reverting to recollections he longed to suppress so deep in his psyche, no trace of their existence could resurface.

Regrettably, that was not memory’s function. Memory was the construct of an individual’s tapestry. Damaging as many episodes of his could be, without it, he was not _that_ man, sitting in that starwing, starting a weeks-long journey.

Back to _her_.

Never a man to cower from a challenge—regardless how daunting—, he relented with a deep exhale, allowing the fog of recollection to ease into his consciousness, drawing his onyx eyes from the vision on the holo display to the middle distance.

To the realm of waking dreams, quasi-notions… and memories.

~~~

The king’s gambit of hard burning the pursuing fleet’s engines to overtake Frieza’s worked. They managed to intercept the Icejin lizard just outside the Namekian solar system.

By then, however, all but the king’s vessel, which had been outfitted with the latest Capsule Corp hyperdrive engines, found themselves dead in the water.

Nevertheless, they outgunned Frieza’s forces. And they brought every weapon to bear on the weaker enemy.

Overpowered, Frieza ordered every vessel in his fleet, including his own mothership, to set course for the king’s force… at ramming speed.

Without the engines to outmaneuver them, the king’s fleet could only sit. And be ravaged.

Using the bloodbath as distraction, Frieza’s mothership birthed a handful of single-person pods, heading straight for the heart of the Namekian solar system.

As the only vessel capable of pursuit, the king’s corvette abandoned his swarmed fleet to give chase.

They would have overtaken the handful of pods easily, had Frieza’s mothership not gone nuclear within a thousand clicks of the passing corvette.

In a starburst of purple-white brilliance, the Icejin ship forever silenced the heartbeats of the Saiyan king, his First General, and tens of thousands of warriors on both sides, who were unfortunate enough to fall in the bounds of the explosion’s catastrophic wake.

The king’s ship had been seconds from breaching Namekian space.

And, thanks to the time bought by the king’s fleet successfully intercepting Frieza’s, four vessels that had traveled from Earth, heading to that same solar system from a disparate vector, had been just within long range visual of the splendorous, horrific massacre.

There was nothing Vegeta could do.

The king was dead.  

The only objective left to him and the rest of the outraged Earthen convoy was to reach Namek, do their damnest to keep the price Freiza sought from his grasp.

After, the prince thought. After, he’d compartmentalize it. After, he’d come to terms with what that uncomfortable tightening of his chest at the loss of the king portended.

Not now.

Now was time for dispassionate initiative.

Seeing the remaining Empire forces afloat and assailed ruthlessly by the kamikaze storm of Frieza’s smaller regiment, Vegeta ordered his lone warcraft to break off and lend assistance in destroying the vessels harassing his people. He ordered his trusted general and lieutenant to do their utmost to save as many ally lives as possible.

As for the two-person starwing, the prince commanded they stay in their current position, outside the solar system, in neutral space. He left further orders that they take flight to the most distant neutral quadrant their fuel supply would take them, if the next couple days proved unfavorable for the defenders.

The prince was nothing if not practical. Were things not go as planned, he would have the Royal bloodline live on through Tarble. His people would not go extinct.

His ship, along with that which harbored the crew of Earth’s elite warriors, continued on to Namek.

Unfortunately, Frieza’s pods had a couple hours on them, even at full burn.

The poor odds didn’t curb their determination.

Upon landing on the green planet—opposite pole to where Frieza’s pods had impacted, to avoid being shot down from the surface—, they were met with carnage.

And immediate battle.

Frieza had brought his hounds: The Ginyu Force, and his personal guards, Zarbon and Dodoria.

The brutes had wasted no time, going from isolated village to isolated village, massacring natives to force the elders to divulge the whereabout of the orbs.

Before leaving Earth, the Terran contingent had been warned by the planet’s guardian of his birth planet’s poor population, depleted as it had been by natural disasters over centuries. Upon arrival, they learned, the numbers of their strongest warrior cast was meager still.

Nevertheless, the prince would later learn that the half dozen natives fought admirably, captained by Nail: a surprisingly gifted fighter. Aided by the Earthlings, they took on and dispensed with four of Frieza’s Elite warriors. Regrettably, mostly through self-sacrifice.

In the end, they had been out-classed by the strongest of the Ginyu Force—Captain Ginyu, himself—, who managed to banish all but one of the Terrans and the earthen Namekian. In a last-ditch effort, Nail had sacrificed his existence to fuse with said Namekian, who had already fused with Earth’s guardian to gain strength before their departure.

That garnered the earthen Namekian—Piccolo—power enough to hold his own against Ginyu until the prince could join the fight.

Vegeta, for his part, parsed from the outset Frieza’s true design for the Ginyu Force on Namek: to serve as distraction to detract from the real endgame.

A quick reconnaissance of chi levels revealed the ones pillaging the villages were Zarbon and Dodoria. Without haste, the prince took them on as quarry.

Taking advantage of the specialized radar his ingenious little mate had provided for just that task, he was able to track down the orbs—and by extension his targets—in hours, as opposed to the couple days it would have taken to scour an entire planet for the relics, even with the inhabitants’ aide in the search.

The brutality of their methods had exponentially shortened the time it took the villains to find the orbs, themselves— defenseless as the populace was. The moment the device became active, the radar indicated six of the relics were already clustered and moving toward Frieza’s coordinates.

The prince gave this little import. Huddled vermin were easier to stomp out.

Infusing his speed with as much chi as his stamina could afford without significant wane, he reached his mark within minutes.

Dodoria, he disposed of with little effort. To his own detriment, the bloated pink pincushion made the error of underestimating the prince for his unimpressive stature, and the outdated intelligence on his power level Frieza’s spies had doubtless provided over the years.

It went much the same with Zarbon, though the amphibian monster skinned in beautiful lies turned out to make for much better sport, once he shed the false trappings and transformed to his true form. Still, the hard-won strength afforded Vegeta over the past two years of specialized training allowed him to end the green freak with chi to spare.

He secured the six orbs and flew them back to his ship for safe keeping, before darting off to where he felt two huge power levels having it out.

Ginyu and Piccolo.

Vegeta was tired, bruised and bloodied to a pulp by the time they managed to end the famed captain of Frieza’s Elite force—a process that took agonizing hours. And culminated in a fight with a Ginyu-possessed Namekian the prince had dubious intentions of fighting, much less killing.

But, kill him he did.

In the end.

Beating the Namekian to mortality’s edge proved the only way to trick Ginyu into a desperate attempt at releasing his hold to make it back into his already wrecked body. Once both were back where they belonged and reeling from the transfer, the prince kneeled over a mortally wounded Picollo who hastily devised a plan to end the infuriating battle. Knowing Ginyu’s next move would be an attempt to use the body-swapping technique on Vegeta (the only person left with a viable body), the prince feigned weakness. When the foreseen assault came, in a dying breath and release of remaining chi, Piccolo masterfully managed to launch a frog in the path of the beam.

The prince immediately avenged his ally with a focused chi blast to the skull of a frog-possessed Captain Ginyu, shortly followed by a Ginyu-possessed frog having all innards splattered by a gold-toed white boot.

Bleeding, bruised and stamina taxed to nearly its limit, Vegeta turned his attentions to the formidable task of facing down Frieza.

During his fight with Zarbon, he’d learned through goading that the Icejin was heading for the planet’s eldest native to retrieve the final orb. Before engaging Ginyu with the Namekian, he’d quickly sought out the weak chi signature of the last Terran breathing— a small man named Krillin—, who’d lain prone and bloody in a crater a few clicks from the ongoing melee.

The prince had groped the neckline of his fight suit for the hidden pocket holding his apportioned sensu bean: a legume with exponential healing qualities each member of the Earth contingent received from an odd hermit feline living on the column leading up to the planet’s guardian palace.

There hadn’t been enough for the Empire warship’s crew, nor for Tarble and his personal guard. Apparently, the things took years to germinate and never in large numbers. Vegeta had counted himself fortunate to get one. He’d also mused for half a second about all he had yet to learn of Earth, even after two years inhabiting it, if the idiosyncrasy of a hermit talking cat with special healing beans, living in the kilometers-long spine of a tower had never caught his notice.

That had been piss-poor timing for such musings, however, and he’d immediately shrugged the thought away.

All the same, he was glad he had the bean to give, as Krillin had choked out how the others had exhausted their supplies in the fight with the rest of Ginyu’s men.

The moment the small man had swallowed the bean, the prince entrusted him with the radar and tasked him with finding the last orb before Frieza could get his hands on it. Krillin had shot off and the prince had leapt to the fray.

Hours had passed since.

Through his fatigue, Vegeta managed to center his senses enough to gauge the chi signatures of the planet’s occupants and ascertained that the earthen had managed to stay alive, along with two Namekians—one of which’s chi was decreasing at an exponential rate.

And, then there was Frieza, a chi the likes of which he’d never felt, a power that burrowed through his skin, imbedding on his very marrow.

Undaunted, he flared his chi just that little more, flying faster to meet the challenge he’d prepared for all his life.

Events became less crystalline from the point where he’d made landfall, placing himself as bulwark between Frieza and the last two remaining living beings on the planet. The third had perished moments before he made it to them. From old age and the grief of losing his many children, the prince would later learn.

Recollections of the next few hours were disjointed, at best. Memory, he came to know, was exceedingly undependable… once one died.

Vegeta remembered _some_ things.

He remembered ordering Krillin and a Namekian child to use the radar to rush the final orb back to the others, tasked them with thinking up a wish to salvage the clusterfuck they all found themselves in.

He remembered fighting through his injuries and fatigue to channel every iota of power he’d struggled a lifetime to gain, unleashing the whole of it on his enemy, hoping to distract the lizard long enough for his allies to make their wish.

He remembered it hadn’t been enough.

 _He_ hadn’t been enough.

He remembered lying broken in a pool of his blood, blinking in and out of consciousness.

He remembered Kakarot appearing seemingly out of thin air.

He remembered the words spoken, the tears the Namekian soil leeched, as he sputtered his final decree to the last of his subjects he would ever address.

He remembered that last searing blast through his back.

Then… _absolute nothingness_.

Next he was aware, he was choking on dirt, gasping for breath, clawing all about him through unpacked soil, making his way on all fours out of a shallow grave without any notion of how much time had lapsed.

A shallow grave?

What the fuck? Had he died? Had that bitch of a lizard murdered him?

Breathe.

_Breathe._

Calm.

Steady the racing pull.

_Breathe._

Assess.

Salvage.

Eyes he hadn’t consciously closed, snapped opened.

First, reconnaissance. His eyes roamed about the blackened, violent sky, bisected by ominous lightning as far as his gaze could travel. His appraisal continued, taking note of the ruined, cracked landscape of his surroundings, geyser after geyser of molten rock going off every other second within meters of where he kneeled.

Next, his eyes surveyed his body. His clothes were littered with tears, drying blood and scorch marks, but the skin he could see beneath was miraculously undamaged. His hand went to the circular hole in his armor and suit to note that, save for a slightly raised starburst scar spanning his sternum and edging each pectoral— he was good as new. The agony he’d been suffering what felt like moments before was gone.

That was the last thought he registered before his surroundings faded away in a stomach-churning swirl, followed by a loss of visual acuity that forced him to shut his eyes. When he opened them again, he found himself in the cargo hold of his personal corvette, surrounded by round about a hundred Namekians, and the entire entourage he’d brought with him from Earth, most of which he’d witnessed slaughtered (some in pieces), not far from where he’d fought Ginyu.

Now, they were all there, on his warship.

How?

“Goku asked to stay behind. He asked us to stay as far away from Namek as possible. It’s about to blow.”

Vegeta spun to face Krillin, eyes narrowed. His statement had been only somewhat helpful. Though, without context, the prince couldn’t make heads or tails what the small man was talking about.

Probably reading the confusion contorting his features, the child Namekian helpfully elaborated in a timid voice, “You died, sir—” the boy circled a look about at his own people and the Earthlings, all of whom had their eyes set upon him, questioning “—you _all_ died.”

His large eyes focused back on Vegeta. “We did as you commanded, sir. We gathered all seven orbs and summoned Porunga. We were allowed three wishes.”

The boy paused to share a skeptic look with Krillin, then continued in that same hesitant manner, “First, we tried asking for Frieza to, you know, die, but that was not within Porunga’s power to grant. So, we asked Porunga to give you and Goku the power to defeat Frieza, instead. But, Porunga said that was not necessary, because Goku already had the power to do that—”

“What does that mean, Kakarot has the power to do that?” Vegeta heatedly intercepted, subconsciously grabbing the scruff of the little Namekian’s robes and lifting him to eye level.

The child’s eyes grew large as dinner plates, but sputter as he might, the words wouldn’t come.

“Goku’s become a Super Saiyan, Prince Vegeta… err… um… King Vegeta? Not sure how succession works for your people. Like, did you gain the title the moment your old man…? never mind…” Kirillin rambled, strategically diverting the incensed monarch’s attention away from the child, while taking advantage of the saiyan’s befuddlement to free the shaking kid from the man’s grip.

“He told me telepathically. We’ve been doing it since we were kids, communicating through thoughts. Always thought it was weird, but I chucked it up to his being an alien when you all showed up on Earth. But, from your expression, I’m guessing it might be a Goku thing—?”

“Stop babbling and get back to what you said about Kakarot becoming a Super Saiyan!”

Krillin gulped and paled, taking a few steps back with the Namekian child, as if distance would protect him were the prince inclined to strike.

_Fucking idiot._

 “Um… just that,” Krillin managed through the mounting nerves. “Goku was off fighting Frieza, keeping him busy to give us time to get to the ship and make the wishes. Once we made it there, we managed to get the balls out, before a geyser sliced right through and the whole thing sank in a lake of lava. Right after we asked Porunga to give you both the power to take out Frieza and he said no, I felt an incredible sure of chi from Goku. I reached out with my senses and he told me he’d reached his goal of becoming a Super Saiyan and that he’d take care of Frieza. He asked us to get off the planet, because it was about to blow. Said he’d take care of Frieza and find his own way off before it exploded.”

Vegeta fought to keep the rage borne of learning he’d been bested in his chase for the Legendary by a third-class imbecile from boiling over into violence. It would not do. He wasn’t a murderer. His failings were not these people’s doing.

But, fuck, did he want to eviscerate someone.

Breathe.

_Breathe._

The child, visibly possessing an empathy far beyond his years capable of gauging the Saiyan’s inner turmoil, tentatively cleared his throat and continued his previous explanation in an even more measured tone. “So, we asked that everyone who’d been killed by Frieza and his men on Namek be brought back. Which was granted and explains why you are all back from the dead. Then, we asked Porunga to restore the lives of those Frieza’s forces killed in space while trying to protect us, but, as they were out of Namekian space, which is Porunga’s domain, it was not in his purview to revive those outside of it.” At whatever expression he saw cross over Vegeta’s countenance, the boy’s eyes grew somber, and he looked down to finish. “So, we used the last wish we had time to make to transport everyone on Namek to the closest safe place. Then we dismissed Porunga without making a final wish, as there was nothing else we could think of asking. That’s how we all got here.”

Vegeta brought a hand to rub the bridge of his nose, working both to ruminate the information he’d been provided and continue tamping down the ire that would do nothing but hinder any effort to device a decisive plan of action.

He’d just about worked both out, when the cargo bay lights began to strobe red, and an electronic voice called for “all hands on deck”.

Cursing under his breath, he ordered the Namekians and Earthlings to stay put in the hold, then turned heel and dashed for the bridge.

“Report, Commander,” he snarled, barely waiting for the doors to fully part before dashing through.

Nappa, Radditz and the entire flight crew swiveled in their chairs to gape at him.

“The fuck did you get back here—?”

“I was _not_ addressing you, Radditz? I’m in no mood for your shit, so shut the fuck up, or by Providence I will shove your dimwitted ass out the nearest airlock,” Vegeta snarled, pointing at the titanic Lieutenant while keeping his cold gaze on Nappa. “You have no idea the day I’ve had, Commander. You _don’t_ want me to repeat myself…”

Nappa immediately straightened, fist coming to his chest. “Of course, Sire. Apologies. We’ve neutralized the forces harassing the king’s fleet and have spent the last several hours coordinating salvage and relief efforts. We should be ready to tow the remaining vessels to the nearest Empire stronghold within the hour.”

“What about the code red?”

A thin Arcosian helmswoman spoke up from over her monitor. “That was a proximity warning, Sire. Planet Namek just exploded. The blast wave caused it’s sun to go supernova. I recommend we move with haste, if we want to avoid getting drawn into the massive black hole forming at the center of that planetary system.”

Vegeta took a deep breath, narrowing his eyes. He stretched his chi sense as far as he could. He’d been able to range it to just outside the Terran solar system for months. The Namekian system was millions of lightyears smaller. Now that he was at full strength, if he concentrated, he would be able to make out any sign of life lingering…

There! He sensed it. Two.

One was fading fast, almost gone.

Not Kakarot.

Frieza.

The lizard had survived the explosion. Judging by how far out he sensed his weak life force, the explosion’s wake had propelled him out of the small system, into dead space, likely out of range of the black hole. Not that it mattered. He was clinging to life by a fraying thread and would be dead long before getting absorbed.

Kakarot’s life force was weak, but not from loss of chi power. From distance. Goku had likely made it to Frieza’s or one of his men’s pod, right before the planet blew. With no knowledge of navigation, he would have only been capable of ordering the thing to blast off as far and fast away from the planet as its design could manage. If the pod’s shields went up, as they were designed to in order to withstand the sheer of breaching orbit, the wake from the explosion would have served to propel its speed. By how fast it faded, Vegeta knew he would lose track of it in seconds.

He needed to get the asshole back to learn the secret to breeching the fabled threshold of the Legendary.

“Kakarot made it off the planet. Track back. We must retrieve him.”

When silence met his command, he spared a look about the bridge. Every pilot and technician was bent in concentration over their respective displays. After a few breaths where no one responded, and he fought his erupting temper, a bookish Ulonian ensign spoke up. “Sire, our long-range sensors aren’t picking up any life readings in this entire sector, likely due to interference from the expanding black hole. If there is a pod out there, it is likely on the opposite side of the anomaly and heading away from our vector at astounding speed. Towing forty-seven vessels and circumventing the hole, astrogeomet models show it would take seven years, three months, twenty days, six hours to intercept any object originating from these coordinates in any direction at that speed.”

No vessel was outfitted with enough supplies for that kind of voyage. Attempting it would be suicide.

And futile.

With a soul-scorching sigh, Vegeta’s shoulders slumped. He could feel all eyes on the bridge burning into him, challenging him to be the leader his breeding had designed him to be.

His desires would be relegated to the back burner for the foreseeable future.

His duty to his people was paramount.

“Set coordinates for the nearest Empire base.”

~0~

The following few months were a blur of never-ending activity.

Upon reaching the nearest base, Vegeta contacted his woman and coordinated transportation of the Namekians and Terrans back to Earth. Once there, Bulma would work in complete secrecy to find a habitable planet for the Namekians to colonize. Guru—Namek’s now deceased Grand Elder—had endowed the new Grand Elder of the Namekians with the power to restore the orbs lost to their planet’s destruction. Therefore, once a suitable planet was found, Porunga would be summoned again and the last wish would be used to transport the Namekians there. Only Bulma would know the location of the Namekians new planet, so that no one would harass the Namekians in the future.

Dende, the youngest of the Namekians and Guru’s second chosen predecessor, made the choice to remain on Earth as its new guardian, and—as the earthen orbs were lost when the previous guardian fused with Picollo—promised to make orbs of his own. In case that world ever needed them.  

Delegating the repairs of the damaged fleet to the spaceport’s technicians, Vegeta and his men proceeded to Sadala, where he participated in the traditional ceremony to bestow upon him the formal title of king.

He always mused that would be a highlight of his life. However, after falling short of his ultimate goal of becoming the Legendary, that honorific fell woefully short of expectations.

Not that the title came without challenges.

From the moment he was crowned, he faced dissenters within his own court. The same dissenters who’d scoffed at his father’s choice of a human as his heir’s mate. These were purists, believers in the sanctity of the Royal blood line. They questioned the ability of any half-breed heir of Vegeta’s to lead their people in the future.

If he had his way, he would have slaughtered the lot of them, but Tarble sagely pointed out that these were the heads of the Super Elite families and removing them would not excise the xenophobic cancer. Annihilating their bloodlines was no solution, either. It would neuter the strongest breeding stock their species had to offer. He would have to win them over with _diplomacy_.

If ever he had a weakness…

Thankfully, he had his brother, who, with honeyed, cunning words manipulated the dissenters to heel, playing on their pride. With skilled subterfuge, the prince extolled the cowardice of not waiting to see if the half-breed heirs proved their mettle in Trials. Because, were they not truly of Saiyan Royal blood if they made it to Commencement at a Super Elite curriculum?

Tarble had gone as far as musing to the courtiers that, as the current Royal Consort was not beholden to their traditions, the king would not be disgraced were he to break his marriage compact to the Terran and disown the half-breeds, should they fail to bring the expected honor to their exalted pedigree. Wherein, the king would choose one of their daughters as Royal Consort to ensure only the strongest heirs preserved the Royal bloodline.

After some grumbling, the court came to the consensus that allowing the deeds of the king’s half-breed heirs to speak of their aptitude was acceptable, taking into account Prince Tarble’s caveat. Misgivings quelled, the courtiers disbursed to go about their duties.

As soon as the court was dismissed, Vegeta and Tarble made a quick departure to the king’s Royal chambers, where the prince had smiled congenially, as the new monarch went on a tear about how there would be a freezing day on Eresin III, before he disparaged his rightfully chosen mate and her children to appease that self-important aristocratic pile of shit.

“What was said in that hall was whatever would placate the mob, brother,” Tarble finally got in between one of Vegeta’s ragged breaths. He sat on one of the arm chairs bracketing the suite’s walls, tipping it back casually, a congenial smile still on his placid face. “You need not worry about any of it coming to pass. I’ve met Bulma. I’ve held your son. Once you introduce her to the court, she will win them over, if not with her charm and wit, then with her brutal tongue and brilliance. Or, she can demand they all be slaughtered. It will be within her purview to command every soldier in this palace. And, that boy of yours is a product of your strength and her mind. He will wipe his ass with any of the Super Elites’ line in Trials, mark my words. I’m glad my girls are only third-class. I wouldn’t want them facing down that beast.”

Vegeta stopped pacing to send a leer his way, not in doubt of his words, just pissed he’d stated so casually a truth his own rage had masked from his notice. The prince’s smile broadened and he winked playfully.

“Anyhow, now that the domestic end of things are in order, you have bigger matters to concern yourself with, Majesty.”

And, fuck if his brother wasn’t right.

The first test of his mettle as ruler came three months after Namek’s destruction.

Beacons at the edge of Empire territory had picked up chatter. Chatter that spoke of King Cold himself scouring the remains of the Namekian system.

According to the intelligence, the Icejin monster had found what was left of his nearly dead son, pieced him back together with the best cybernetic tech his empire could offer, and was currently making his way to Earth to exact revenge on the planet Kakarott had let slip was his home world at some point in his fight with Frieza.

Like hell, Vegeta would let them get there.

Thanks to the latest Capsule Corp. hyperdrive engine upgrades to his personal fleet, he managed to intercept Cold’s regiment hallway to his mate’s world.

As the space battle ensued, Vegeta took a page from his brother’s playbook, playing to the Icejin’s notorious pride.

He challenged them both to man-to-man combat.

After both lizards stopped laughing uproariously, they agreed to call a seize fire and meet the Saiyan king on an asteroid a few astral units from the combined fleets.

Vegeta could see it in his First Commander’s eyes as he settled into the pod destined to take him to either of two ends: his ultimate glory, or an early grave. The big man did not want him to risk himself. But, like any good subject, he would follow his monarch’s directive.

And, so, the aged soldier secured the pod’s hatch, and saluted his liege as the vessel departed the warship’s bay.

The three pods arrived nearly at the same time on the planetoid, impacting a few dozen feet from each other, none of the occupants wasting a moment to emerge.

Frieza did not object when King Cold arrogantly decreed he would take care of the monkey filth, so they could be on their way.

Vegeta, uncharacteristically, remained quiet, measuring, calculating.

Studying the large Icejin, his eyes narrowed, and he made an alarming discovery. For all his bluster, King Cold’s power level was nowhere near that of his son’s third form, which Frieza seemed confined to after his demise and reconstitution.

That knowledge triggered a short surge of the unfathomable power Vegeta had glimpsed intermittently throughout the course of his training. He felt something fracture, deep inside, a heat strumming from some spot at the base his spine—around the base of his tail—up and out. It wasn’t the totality of the power he felt roiling just beneath the surface of his core, writhing to be set free, but it was enough.

Midway through one of King Cold’s boasts—something about a monkey pelt looking spectacular in his solar—Vegeta moved.

In the next nth of a second, his pitiless face was inches away from that of the towering Icejin’s, whose eyes widened in shocked awe and pain, as his body spilled over Vegeta’s arm. Which was wedged into his chest to the elbow, clear through muscle, organs and bone, and out the large lizard’s back.

King Cold barely managed a guttural gurgle, before Vegeta twisted his gloved hand into a claw, and thrust it out.

Frieza watched, that same awed shock in his almost comically wide eyes, as his father’s limp body fell to the rocky surface of the asteroid, vacant, glassy eyes still open and staring his son’s way.

The Saiyan king loomed unperturbed over the corpse, holding a heart the size of one of his kind’s head in his outstretched palm.

Without pomp, Vegeta lifted his off hand and, with a wide blast of chi, obliterated the remains of the fallen Icejin, ensuring not even ash remained for astral winds to flit about the cosmos.

Subsequently, he casually lobbed the huge, still lightly spasming organ at Frieza’s feet.

“Rumors are never to be trusted, it would appear. Asshole _did_ have one of those. Who would’ve figured?” the king quipped, dark eyes keen and hungry, settled on his next opponent.

Before his rival’s indignation-contorted expression could yield the rebuttal they both knew lingered at the tip of his serpentine tongue, the asteroid shuddered violently under them. The next second, both moved lightning fast to evade the superheated, ten-meter chunk of cosmic rock that slammed into where they’d been standing.

Vegeta had half a heartbeat to assess the paradigm shift, before backhand sprinting out of the course of another meteor the size of a child.

A ship had gone nuclear, courtesy of the space conflict, and the responding blast had disturbed the debris in the belt, forcing stone that hadn’t seen motion in millennia to start colliding with each other.

He barely had time to think between dodging the projectiles, coming at him from all directions. Then, Frieza attacked, and he had to dodge body blows, chi blasts _and_ comets.

_Shit!_

It was too much. He was fast. Faster than the asteroids, faster than Frieza, even (to his own surprise), but dodging both was proving more and more difficult with every second.

He took blow after blow, burn after burn. Every hit Frieza landed felt like a world-ender, yet his body absorbed the damage, instead of succumbing to it. And, for the first few minutes, he was able to give as good as he took. He was surprised when he realized that he could not just track the Icejin’s every strike, but block and even counterstrike with force enough to deal damage.

Then, from his peripheral came a meteor that would have taken his head, had he not parried a chi blast at it at the last nanosecond. That fraction of a second afforded Frieza an opening to deal a point-blank supercharged, narrow chi blast to his chest. It came so fast, Vegeta’s left hand moved instinctually to block the fatal blow to his heart, the strike propelling him at break neck speed toward the asteroid.  

He impacted with enough force to break halfway through to the asteroid’s core—much as he managed to break most of the ribs on the left side of his body.

For a moment, he lay in the crater, gasping for the air the blast and crash forced from his lungs. Every inhale was agony, but his attention seemed caught on something else. A foreign sensation radiating down his left arm. Something his mind registered as intrinsically wrong but could not pinpoint why. It mingled with the sweet-acrid scent of flesh and fat scorched clean to the bone.

Relegating it to the back of his mind to clear his thoughts, he forced his clouded vision to focus enough to see Frieza float leisurely down to him, a massive chi ball gaining size between both hands.

Keeping his thoughts from jumbling as he faded in and out from hypoxia, Vegeta strained to make out what the Icejin said. Tried to focus on the bastard’s words to keep alert enough to regain his strength. He had to get back up and finish this.

“…a shame, really. I hear she’s quite spectacular. Perhaps I’ll hold off on destroying her city, just long enough to take her as my price. After all, a female of her caliber deserves someone, who can properly… _handle_ … her. And, I’m afraid that you, Monkey King, no longer fit the bill—”

Fuck was that shithead going on about?

Vegeta surged his chi, building from his reserves for the strength to force himself up. With effort, he managed to lift his arms to his sides, readying himself to brace the rock face for leverage to charge, when that odd sensation returned full force, impossible to ignore.

That something made it impossible to find purchase.

Under his right hand was hard jagged space rock. Under his left… his eyes tracked to hist left hand…

To find a thin bloody trickle oozing from the smoking, singed stomp of his wrist.

_His hand!_

_That last blast had burned off his fucking hand!_

Everything went still and quiet, as he stared at the ruin of what was once his hand. He no longer felt the pain of his injuries. He no longer heard his ragged breaths or ratcheting heartbeats. He no longer heard the pelting asteroids raining all about him, some smaller bits colliding with him, scorching his already brutalized skin. He no longer heard Frieza’s rant, no longer felt the power or heat of the chi ball forming in the tyrant’s hands a meter off.

All he heard, all he felt, was the rumbling. The unstoppable quaking. It started deep inside. Something shattering like glass exposed to high decibels. The shaking kept intensifying, vibrating at impossible speed, until it was nothing but light, nothing but energy.

Surging, fighting to break free.

With a soul deep scream, he allowed it its freedom.

Blinding light everywhere. Around him. Through him.

He was made of it, consumed by it.

It was Frieza’s horrified scream that forced eyes he had no recollection of closing open. He saw everything in shades of brilliant energy. Frieza’s frenetic motions paled in velocity when compared to the threads of chi he traced all about him, like the Icejin danced under water. With an exhale, Vegeta pulsated the energy swirls and every piece of rock within several meters circumference shattered to dust, blasting Frieza back in the process.

He was levitating, he realized absently, only because he moved toward his enemy, and his feet did not touch the rocky ground. Frieza retreated, shooting volley after volley of chi at him. No finesse, just a desperate release of defensive power. But his enemy was pathetically slow. It seemed an eternity for each blast to reach him, took barely a thought for his forearms to switch directions and deflect every salvo.

Then, in the midst of the onslaught, the corner of his eye caught sight of the ruined remains of what was once his hand once more, and the rage burned through him, hotter than it ever had before. In a flash, he was on Frieza, single hand left to him locked tight around the lcejin’s throat.

His enemy struggled, bringing his tail to wrap about the saiyan’s own throat, but could not get a firm grip, as Vegeta’s own tail shot up to lodge between neck and encroaching limb. With another burst of chi, his tail wrapped about the Icejin’s and yanked with so much force, the entire cybernetic appendage ripped clear from the base of Frieza’s spine.

The tyrant screeched in rage and agony. He screamed and screamed, and clawed at the arm that held him, legs worked frantically, spasmodically, to inflict damage, gain leverage to dislodge the hold.

But, Vegeta was an unmovable object. A driven arrow, with a murderous shadow.

With a final, guttural snarl accompanied with a vicious surge of chi, Frieza’s screams cut off, as his body scorched from inside out, until all that was left in the saiyan’s hand were particles of ash.

The deed done, Vegeta indulged a few moments, eyes closed, breathing in the blood-smoke-and-death reeking air, aware two of those scents came from his own damaged body. But in a detached sort of way. He allowed the astronomical energy flowing through him to pulsate and surge, almost of its own accord.

A celebration of what he’d achieved. The status of the Legendary.

After a few moments of serene fulfillment, he slowed his breathing.

In and out.

In and out.

Calm.

Slow the pulse.

Assert control.

Once he forced the energy back into its cradle, not submerged, just vaulted for future use, tamed, he focused his aqua green eyes on his pod.

He made his way to it and took off to finish from the comfort of his warship the remnants of the fleet the Icejin had brought with them.

~~~

“Hey dickhead! You’re spacing out on me again—”

The woman’s arraignment brought Vegeta out of his reverie to focus back on her. He wasn’t fully aware what she’d said before calling him out, but he wasn’t going to let on.

With a feigned yawn, he flexed the fingers of his left hand into a fist, bringing his elbow to the armrest, and reclined his temple on it. The earthen metal casing was always cold as hell in the regulated atmosphere of the starwing, but he’d be damned if he let her see how much it bothered him.

His nonchalance made no difference, however. Her eyes still tracked to the compilation of metal, conduits and wires that replaced the flesh and blood whose touch she’d grown accustomed to over the course of their liaison.

“First thing on the docket once you arrive,” she said, her nose wrinkling in feigned distaste meant as mockery, even as her eyes remained tinged with a sadness they both knew he could see. “We wish your hand back. I’m not letting you touch me with that…thing.”

He allowed himself a snort, moving the hand before him so it filled both their visual range. He shifted it palm to back, flexing each digit rhythmically. “I don’t know,” he said, amused. “It’s doubtless some of your finest work. I would think you’d miss such a masterpiece being lost to a fanciful wish.”

She scoffed, allowing her true anger at the topic to surface, if only for a second. “Yeah, I’ll get over its loss, Vegeta. I still have the specs, anyway. Not that I’d ever use that prototype again. It has no nerve sensors. If we couldn’t wish the real thing back, I’d be working right now on something that will actually allow you to feel through the metal. I’m already collecting the balls. You’ll have it back the moment you get back here.”

The corner of the king’s mouth hitched. The woman was nothing if not resourceful.

He’d spent the months following Frieza’s death leading his fleet from corner of one galaxy to the next, ferreting out Frieza’s remaining forces and annexing whichever worlds he found of value to the Saiyan Empire. Those with no value, he’d offer asylum and aide in their recovery from slavery. It had been half a year, and they’d only reached a small fraction of the dead tyrants’ territory.

When the prosthetic had arrived via special envoy during a week’s leave on one of his space stations, he’d been duly impressed she’d managed to track him so easily. She’d even sent a group of the finest cyberneticists and surgeons— earthen and Empire, alike— to ensure the attachment went off without a hitch.

She was fucking magnificent.

If he had to suffer years of his life cleaning up the mess the Icejin left in the universe, he’d be damned if he’d be doing it on his own.

Hence this trip.

He had decided to spend a few years with his newly appointed minister of science, Bulma Briefs, hatching out a proper plan for systematically repairing the damage centuries of brutal rule had done to so many galaxies. He was confident the minister would have invaluable data to impart.

Also, he really, _really_ needed to feel her, writhing in pleasure beneath him. Nearly a year of nothing but commlinks wasn’t enough. His need of her grew more desperate by the day.

Once he was forced to leave Earth, he’d bring his training room with him, along with her. She’d be by his side on every mission, every deployment. It was his prerogative as king to travel with any councilors of his choosing, after all.

And, she’d already spent months working out how she would maintain her company remotely, from wherever their affairs took them.

They would have their son with them. If he’d correctly understood her rantings about the child over the last few comms, the boy had started walking recently. Once a Saiyan walked, he could train. And, he was determined to ensure his son was mentally and physically superior to any child born to any of his race, regardless of clan.

His boy, his half-breed heir, would show them all.

As would his siblings. Vegeta had no intentions of keeping his boy an only child. His mate was more than affable to the idea of having what she quizzically referred to as a ‘football team’, as long as she was allowed special dispensation as the first non-Saiyan Royal Consort to keep contact with her children throughout Trials, on the week they spent between deployments. As the half-breeds likely had a psychological need for such interaction for proper development, special dispensation had been granted to allow their children to see their parents during their tenure at Trials.

“So, are you going to admit you miss me before I sign off?”

He snorted, allowing himself a chuckle. “Impossible request. How can any man ever miss the likes of you, woman?”

Before she could retort, he cut the uplink, sinking back into his chair.

Reaching for the control panel to type in the command to initiate stasis for long range travel, he allowed himself one last wistful musing.

**_One can’t miss what’s never gone. What exists beneath their skin._ **

* * *

  _The End... For Now..._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I barely edited this to get it out this weekend. There are errors. I hope to take care of them over the next few days.
> 
> Thank you all for going along with me on this journey. I very much hope you all enjoyed.
> 
> And, thanks to everyone who left kudos, comments and bookmarked this fic. As a relative newbie to this fandom, I was floored by the overwhelming response this fic received.
> 
> I hope to write more in the future.

**Author's Note:**

> If you are the strong, silent type, hit me up anonymously on Tumblr: the-tesseract-wrinkling-time.tumblr.com


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